Nigel Lindsay

Philip Green and bad business – Lib Dems must act firmly

By Nigel Lindsay | Wed 2nd December 2020 - 9:00 am

The collapse of Philip Green’s retail empire, Arcadia is a sad case of history repeating itself. It is only 4.5 years since BHS went into administration, and whilst Green was no longer the owner then, having sold it for £1 in 2015 to the serial bankrupt Dominic Chappell, it was under Green’s ownership in the previous 15 years that the under-investment and plundering of profits led to the situation where the chain was no longer viable.

Retail analysts are commenting that a similar set of circumstances mean Arcadia is now not fit for purpose. The shops look tired, and there has been a failure to embrace online technology at a time when going to physical shops is difficult for many customers. Additionally, Green is reputed to have taken huge dividends out of Arcadia – £1.2billion in 2005, all of which is safely secured in his wife’s name in the tax haven of Monaco.

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Lord William Wallace

We need to argue for public investment in neglected UK areas AND a generous international aid budget

By Lord William Wallace | Tue 1st December 2020 - 12:45 pm

It’s not a surprise that a You Gov opinion poll showed 66% of respondents supporting the government’s plans for a ‘temporary’ cut in the foreign aid budget. Spending on foreign aid has been consistently unpopular with the British public for years; when pollsters ask what sector of public spending should be reduced, foreign aid outstrips all others.

Liberal Democrats hold to the argument that supporting overseas development is both a moral obligation and a foreign policy priority. But when we face so strong a negative response, we need to think carefully about how we make the case for development spending. And we need also to understand the bitterness of the ‘left behind’ in the former industrial towns of the Midlands and the North, as public spending has been cut and their local authorities have had to close more and more facilities.

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The Voice

LibLink: Young Liberal calls on Cheltenham’s MP to take action to end period poverty

By The Voice | Tue 1st December 2020 - 11:17 am

Over on the Cheltenham Liberal Democrats website, Young Liberal Jessica Jeffries writes to her local MP, calling on him to take action to end period poverty:

The negative impact of period poverty can affect women in many different ways. Physically, there is a high risk of infection due to the repeated use of old sanitary products, and the use of dirty rags/pieces of cloth which many have to use as an alternative. Psychologically, as a result of the stigma, many women feel embarrassment/shame when discussing menstruation and those who struggle financially will face much stress as they choose between feeding themselves and their family or buying period products.

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Mark Valladares

Has time been called on Local Government investments in commercial property?

By Mark Valladares | Mon 30th November 2020 - 4:09 pm

One of the most troubling trends in local government finances in recent years is the move by councils into commercial property. Not actually building much, although it’s hardly unheard of, but buying it, using low interest rates to borrow large sums of money. The theory is that, with returns on commercial property higher than interest rates for borrowers, councils can earn a profit in the investments, using the funds to support local services.

It hasn’t gone unremarked, and I wrote about this in December 2018. Of course, since then, the pandemic has had some dramatic effects on commercial property, with the market slumping as retail outlets go under, shopping malls fail and white collar employers in particular pivot towards having staff work at home at least some of the time.

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Holly Burton

How we championed a growing anti-discrimination campaign and made our council a more inclusive employer

By Holly Burton | Mon 30th November 2020 - 1:06 pm

In November’s Full Council, Hull City Council (HCC) unanimously passed a motion calling for a proactive, zero-tolerance anti-discrimination policy and backed a campaign for the law to be changed to make this mandatory for all organisations.

In the summer, the former president of Hull University Union founded a campaign called @MakeDiversityCount following her experience of racism in her role – and how the university was not equipped to deal with it. Her story and subsequent petition calling for all organisations to have a clear, robust and effective policy prompted me to investigate the situation at HCC, which she was pleased to support.

I did some research and discovered a number of potential failings at the council. Despite pockets of good practice, the evidence suggested many did not feel comfortable speaking up: lack of awareness of the reporting processes and the fear that they would not be taken seriously were among the suspected reasons for this. This simply wasn’t good enough.

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Jonathan Fryer

Stepping up to the plate on Iran

By Jonathan Fryer | Mon 30th November 2020 - 11:03 am

Just how powerful is Global Britain, as the country walks out of the EU door? The question has taken on a certain urgency given the disturbing events of the last few days regarding Iran.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the country’s most senior nuclear scientist, was assassinated on the outskirts of Tehran on Friday. The Iranians immediately blamed Israel, which is not as outrageous a claim as some the Islamic Republic makes. Tel Aviv has made no secret of its wish to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions – as it did earlier with Iraq – and Dr Fakhrizadeh was not the first leading Iranian scientist to be “taken out”. Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has at times made graphic presentations about what he sees as the Iranian nuclear threat.

Disturbingly, reactions in the Iranian media over the weekend included the suggestion that Haifa should be targeted for reprisals – even though would mean civilian casualties. The security situation for the whole region has suddenly got a whole lot worse.

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Leon Duveen

New Liberal Democrat Peers should be elected by Liberal Democrat members

By Leon Duveen | Mon 30th November 2020 - 9:03 am

Editorial note – I forgot to add the critical link to the motion, which has now been restored to its rightful place. Apologies to all…

As Liberal Democrats, we have long supported the abolition of an unelected House of Lords and its replacement by an elected second chamber of Parliament. However, there is little chance of it happening soon, or even in the next ten years.

Until that time, we must carry on with the current House of Lords and at some stage the Leader of the Liberal Democrats will invited to nominate people to sit the House of Lords as working Liberal Democrat Peers to replace those who retire or, sadly, die.

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Posted in Op-eds and Party policy and internal matters | Tagged and | 47 Comments
Mark Valladares

30 November 2020 – welcome to my day…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 30th November 2020 - 8:04 am

I thought that I’d start the day with music, and this seemed to be perfect, the first of the Tunes for Archbishop Parker’s Psalter, written by Thomas Tallis in 1567. The words seem most appropriate for the joys of a Day Editor…

Man blest no doubt who walk’th not out
In wicked men’s affairs,
And stand’th no day in sinner’s ways
Not sit’th in scorner’s chairs;
But hath his will in God’s law still,
This law to love aright,
And will him use, on it to muse,
To keep it day and night.

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Caron Lindsay

Cllr Liz Barrett: How I won Perth City South

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 29th November 2020 - 7:52 pm

You can imagine how much I enjoyed writing Cllr Liz Barrett in the ehadline. I am still ridiculously excited about Cllr Barrett’s victory in the Parth City South by-election on

Liz is the second person in her household to be elected a Councillor. Her husband Peter has represented Perth City Centre ward since 2003. We will let him away with getting Liz’s ward wrong in his tweet.

Liz has written an email to party members about how she won:

Subject: Here’s how I WON in Perth South

Three years ago I missed out on becoming Perth City South Councillor in a by-election, but last Thursday I WON!  We came from third place, beat the Tories, and took a seat off the SNP.

 It’s no secret the last few years have been tough for our party. Couple that with a global pandemic and associated restrictions, it’s easy to get caught up in a campaigning black hole.

 But, I can tell you, working hard locally really does put you in pole position to reap the rewards. 

 We have been campaigning non-stop through surveys, petitions, street letters and regular Focus leaflets ever since I lost that day three years ago. Since lockdown, we’ve been sending e-news to over 350 residents, and growing.

 In July, we stole a march on both the Conservatives and SNP by getting two leaflets out in quick succession after deliveries were authorised by the Party.  

 We also knew we had to get our message across the doorsteps in person, so, when rules have allowed, a team of us have been out pounding the pavements, talking to residents and hearing their concerns. 

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The Voice

How you can help Liberal Democrat Voice

By The Voice | Sun 29th November 2020 - 12:53 pm

The Voice is only a success because of the interest and support from our readers. For many people just lurking and reading the site is all they want to do – and that’s fine, we’re grateful for people taking the time to read the site.

You can though help us continue to produce interesting content for a growing audience. Here are four simple ways:

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Caron Lindsay

The ultimate campaigning smorgasbord: 1000 people at ALDC’s Kickstart

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 28th November 2020 - 5:34 pm

This weekend, ALDC’s Kickstart event is taking place online. Hundreds of LIb Dems have been taking part in panel discussions and training sessions. There are separate streams for councillors and campaigners, future campaign leaders and leaflet designers.  I have never actually been to a UK wide Kickstart event so it’s fantastic to be able to take part virtually in this one.

https://twitter.com/ALDC/status/1332678884324745221?s=20

I have been there as a volunteer helping to deliver a training session (on good photos, used well) and to mentor a small group.

There has been training for agents, organisers and campaigners on everything from the finer points of electoral law to writing good copy for your leaflets and building your teams.  There were two slots of 8 simultaneous training sessions, an opening plenary session with Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper and a choice of two keynote speeches at lunchtime. And there is much the same tomorrow. And that’s not counting the 45 separate mentor groups and the panels for Councillors.

I understand that both of today’s keynote speeches have been recorded. My highlight of the day was Alliance Party Leader and Northern Irish Justice Minister Naomi Long. Her knights on politics and campaigning were fascinating – so grounded in making things better for people. She described how John Alderdice sorting out a problem for her when she was a student left a lasting impression and led to her joining Alliance and then standing for elected office. Her focus on being honest with voters and not trying to equivocate on issues that matter was for me really important. It is well worth listening to if you get the chance.

The other keynote panel event was with  former Lib Dem MEPs.

The amount of organisation that has gone into this event is huge. With over 1000 people expected to attend, spreadsheet Queen Abi Bell had organised every tiny detail and made sure that everyone had the right information to get to where in the ALDC Zoomiverse they needed to be.

This was ALDC’s back office where a tech team made sure that we didn’t break Zoom:

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Caron Lindsay

Young Liberals demand cancellation of deportation flight – how you can help

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 28th November 2020 - 1:16 pm

Who on earth would deport people in the middle of a global pandemic?

From the Independent:

The Home Office has scheduled a deportation flight to Jamaica on the day England’s month-long coronavirus lockdown lifts, sparking outrage and accusations of institutionalised racism.

Speaking with The Independent, Zita Holbourne, the national co-chair of Black Activists Rising Against Cuts UK and the organiser of a long-running petition calling on the Home Office to end “mass deportations” to Jamaica, said it was a dangerous step to deport people during a pandemic.

She said she was disturbed to learn the government had planned the deportation flight for 2 December, the day England’s nationwide lockdown aimed at preventing the spread of Covid-19 lifts.

We shouldn’t be surprised at our Home Office’s callous disregard for people’s health.

But nor should we stand by.

Young Liberals are writing to the Home Secretary to ask her to stop this deportation.

Their letter says:

Dear Home Secretary,

The Young Liberals write to you, with support of the wider Liberal Democrat membership and those with other political affiliations, with our concerns regarding the scheduled deportation of up to fifty people to Jamaica on Wednesday 2nd December 2020. We wish to add our voices to those of esteemed organisations such as BARAC UK & BAME Lawyers for Justice, who are urging the Home Secretary to reconsider the proposed action in line with legal and moral considerations.

We note with significant alarm the Home Secretary’s lack of confirmation that a review of Home Office policies will take place to ensure that the Home Office’s current practices comply with equalities legislation.

The ‘deport now and appeal later’ principle underpinning the Home Office’s ongoing Hostile Environment Policy preys on minority ethnic individuals without sufficient money, connections, or support in the UK, acting in a highly discriminatory way.

We wish to reiterate ongoing concerns about the systematic prejudices of the Home Office, with the Home Office failing to implement the total findings and recommendations of the ‘Windrush Lessons Learned Review’, the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ Report on ‘Black People, Racism and Human Rights’, or the 2018 Shaw Report which recommended that the Government should not deport those born or brought up in the UK.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Development Aid

By Tom Arms | Fri 27th November 2020 - 8:07 pm

This week the British government announced that it planned to cut its overseas aid budget by 0.2 percent or about $4 billion a year. In 2019 it was $19.3 billion and Britain laid proud claim to being the world’s third largest aid donor and one of only five countries which had reached the internationally agreed aid donor figure of 0.7 percentage of GDP.

The announcement this week by Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak was an emotional short-sighted political decision by a populist government as a knee-jerk response to the economic difficulties created by the coronavirus pandemic. It had no grounding in either humanitarian or economic considerations.

Instead it caved in to the popular conception that charity begins at home without any acceptance of the fact that we live in an increasingly interdependent and interconnected world.

Schools in the developing world will close or not open. Children will go hungry. Unemployment will rise along with political instability.  People, lots of them, will die if the proposed cut in British aid goes ahead.

British prestige in the world will also suffer. So will British trade and the British economy. The aid budget has never been an exercise in unadulterated altruism.  The fact is that aid flows from the developed to the developing world encourage global economic growth which creates markets for British goods and services. Poor people buy fewer British products. Dead people buy even less.

The aid cut still has to be voted on by parliament, and there is a growing cross-party consensus – including a number of rebel conservative MPs – that the proposal is a mistake and should be rejected. But parliamentary arithmetic – an 80-seat majority for the Johnson government – coupled with the political attraction of a simplistic solution to a complex problem, means that it will probably be approved.

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Marisha Ray

Identity and ethnicity, how we come to use and need the different ways which we describe ourselves

By Marisha Ray | Fri 27th November 2020 - 6:03 pm

You’re about to read about my ethnic or racial identity; it’s personal and I expect it to be treated with respect. If you cannot oblige, please try to stop reading now.

For too many any discussion of identity provokes an immediate authoritarian, polarised reaction and that reaction, that thoughtless, immediate, instinctive response is a part and parcel of the kernel of racism. So, please take this opportunity to watch your own reactions as though they were someone else’s and reflect on your own reactions too, allowing those with a sense of a minority identity a degree of flexibility and control.

For me my earliest ideas of identity formed very early in life and were exciting, something special and to be open about, I was aware by the age of three that I spoke and understood both Bengali – a language without gendered pronouns – and English, with its greater focus on gender. By the time I was four, I described myself as “Bengali”, though born in south west London to a professional, middle class family which lived in north and central London since the late 1920’s, however I am still asked where I am really from. I had at the time never been to Bangladesh or India, but I am a part of my global family and its global identity is Bengali or, in Bengali, Bangali. The language has a surprising amount in common with Russian, both grammar and vocabulary. Our family was from the parts of Bangladesh nearest India, and I was told that 400 years previously had relocated from Rajasthan. The family tree was in the Jagannath Mandir (temple) in Puri, and when I first went there, aged 11, my existence also was recorded. Hindus are prohibited, I was told, from marrying any blood relative who was directly related within seven generations on that tree.

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Caron Lindsay

Breaking….Liz Barrett wins for the Liberal Democrats in Perth

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 27th November 2020 - 11:59 am

I am actually bursting with excitement right now.

Great news from Perth where Liz Barrett has won a Council by-election, taking a seat from the SNP:

I have known Liz for a long time and she is one of the most competent and caring people I have ever met. She spent the pandemic making PPE for carers and organising a community foodbank. She was just 29 votes from victory in a by-election in the ward almost exactly three years ago and she hasn’t stopped working since.

She joins Scottish Party President Willie Wilson as Councilor for the ward.

Here’s the result of the first preferences count. She’s only 75 votes behind the SNP but wins on transfers under the AV system.

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Humphrey Hawksley

The unpalatable cause of poverty

By Humphrey Hawksley | Fri 27th November 2020 - 10:52 am

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As arguments rage over cuts in Britain’s international aid budget, Liberal Democrats could help expose some of the mechanisms which create and sustain poverty.  On Tuesday December 1st, that brand household name Nestle is going the U.S. Supreme Court to argue that it should be allowed to use slavery to farm and ship raw cocoa from west Africa in order to make our chocolate.

Let me repeat that.  Nestle, whose profits last year were $15 billion, insists it has a right to make money from slavery.  In technical terms, it wants to be granted corporate legal immunity.

I first reported on this dreadful practice of child slavery on west African cocoa farms in 2000 for the BBC. The confectionary industry executives with their plush offices and multi-million pound executive bonuses rounded on me, with accusations that I was inventing and fabricating. I wasn’t. The BBC supported the story. I went back to the Ivory Coast, Mali and Ghana time and time again.

Despite promises from confectionary companies and the British government, the culture of slavery and poverty did not only continue, it got worse. A recent U.S. Dept of Labor report found more than two million children were now working on the west African cocoa farms from which Nestle gets its supplies. Many of the children are trafficked, held against their will with no schooling or health care. They are victims of long-standing arrangements between governments and corporations to retain cheap or free labour in favour of high profits.

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Adrian Sanders

Keeping hope alive

By Adrian Sanders | Thu 26th November 2020 - 7:30 pm

I was reading criticism of the dear leader the other day and thought without leaders to be critical about we really wouldn’t be a Liberal Party.  It’s understandable when we are down in the opinion polls oscillating between 5 and 7 per cent, but I wonder if we aren’t beating ourselves up over something we still haven’t fully come to terms with in order for us to put it right.

Firstly, how we went into and performed in Coalition has done far more damage to our brand than even the most pessimistic Clegg critics predicted. Unless, in the unlikely event, there’s a change in the electoral system, it may have put us back two, three or more decades.

Secondly, as a direct consequence, losing third party status in the Commons has made it near impossible to get back to the levels of broadcast and newspaper coverage we enjoyed before the Coalition. Making our own noise is all we have and internal criticism of whom a majority of members elected as leader doesn’t help when it isn’t justified.

Thirdly, no leader, whether currently among our MPs or from outside, can turn this round without grassroots campaigning on issues that unite rather than divide the electorate. For example, almost everyone loves our NHS, but few hold the same affection for the EU. Why hasn’t the NHS we helped create been first and foremost in our campaigning?

Fourthly, since the Coalition we have allowed ourselves to be framed by Brexit and minority interests and not by what the preamble to our constitution says we stand for. There are very few constituencies where this current perception can deliver seats, and bums on seats is what counts if you want political power in order to redistribute it.

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George Potter

It’s a mistake to try to be ‘the party of carers’

By George Potter | Thu 26th November 2020 - 5:30 pm

Sir Ed Davey has repeatedly said that he wants the Liberal Democrats to be “the party of carers”. This is an admirable goal, drawing from his own lived experience as a carer for his mother as a child, and now for his disabled son.

However putting this front and centre, both in Sir Ed’s conference speech and in numerous media interviews, seems to be a serious strategic mistake.

This is not because the issue isn’t important. Carers are treated appallingly by the state and receive grossly inadequate support, if they get any at all. It is absolutely right to speak up for them and to have policies that help them.

But it is a mistake to make this our main message, because the public don’t vote for parties based on technical policy details. They don’t vote for skills wallets, social care reform policies or coffee cup taxes. Nor do they vote based on stances on carers, political reform or mental health provision.

It’s not that the public don’t think that issues like lifelong learning or reducing disposable coffee cup usage are worthy causes. It’s just that they don’t use such stances as guides on who to vote for. As our party president has pointed out in the past, people vote based on what are known as ‘valence’ issues: essentially, totemic issues which signal the “goodness” or “badness” of a party on key areas.

People judge the message a party sends out about its values on key topics like the NHS, or the economy, or Brexit, and then they assume that the detailed policies must be good or bad on that issue, and on associated issues, based on that initial judgement.

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Mary Reid

Ed Davey and National Carers Rights Day

By Mary Reid | Thu 26th November 2020 - 2:03 pm

The pandemic has opened all our eyes to the importance of carers, whether employed in the care sector or unpaid people who care for family members.

Today is National Carers Rights Day, an event co-ordinated by Carers UK. Their research has unearthed the astonishing statistic that unpaid carers in the UK have saved the state £530 million every day of the pandemic – that is a staggering £135 billion so far.

It is essential that carers know their rights – what they are entitled to and sources of help. There are plenty of pointers here.

During the leadership campaign Ed Davey made respect and support for carers a key issue. He has been doing some serious work on the policy area since then, inspired by his own experiences as a carer, first for his mother when a teenager, and more recently for his disabled son.

He has now launched a campaign to raised the Carer’s Allowance by £1000 per year.

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Stuart Crawford

Could Scottish Independence save the Scot Lib Dems?

By Stuart Crawford | Thu 26th November 2020 - 11:48 am

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There’s no denying that the first 20 years of the 21st Century have hardly been auspicious for the Liberal Democrats in general and the Scot Lib Dems in particular. North of the Border the numbers of our elected representatives has been in rapid decline; in the period 2000 – 2020, numbers of our MSPs in the Scottish Parliament have dropped from 17 in the first Parliament to five now; at Westminster, in roughly the same timeframe, our MPs have reduced from 10 to four; whilst in Scotland’s local authorities the number of Lib Dem councillors has atrophied from 170 in 2003 to 67 today.

That’s an approximate reduction of two thirds overall which, however you might try to dress it up, cannot be celebrated as progress; quite the opposite. The reasons  why this might be so are many and varied and I have written about some of them before, so now is not the time to beat that particular drum again. Suffice to say that continuing to do more of the same, in terms of electioneering and campaigning, and expecting different results falls very neatly into Einstein’s definition of madness. Radical change in strategy and tactics is called for, and it can’t come a moment too soon.

What hope for the future, then? The prospects for the Holyrood elections next May – if Covid-19 allows them to take place – aren’t looking too rosy for the party. Multiple successive polls have put the party at between 6 – 8% or the projected vote, in many cases a lesser proportion than the Scottish Green party. Below the Greens for goodness sake! How are the mighty fallen. Most commentators predict a healthy majority for the SNP and their Green allies, although the only poll that matters is the election vote itself, and politics is a fickle mistress. We may be surprised yet.

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Caron Lindsay

Unforgivable choices – Lib Dems respond to the Spending Review

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 25th November 2020 - 6:44 pm

For the second time in three days, Christine Jardine pressed the Government to do more to help those who have thus far been excluded from Government support. Three million self-employed people have had nothing since March and some have had no income at all because they work in areas that aren’t yet open. In March they were stressed. Eight months on, they are desperate.

Rishi Sunak was dismissive, but not as egregious as Boris Johnson had been the other day when Christine questioned him.

“I hope we haven’t excluded anyone” said the PM. If he doesn’t know that there is a massive All-Party Parliamentary Group fighting for these people, if he hasn’t been aware of the many questions that have been asked in Parliament, then that shows unforgivable ignorance. If he did know of the plight of the three million, his remarks show callous disregard.

Later, Christine talked to BBC News arguing against the public sector pay freeze and the abandonment of the 0,7% aid target.

On that international aid issue, Wendy Chamberlain highlighted how the Government had gone back on its word:

Ed Davey said that the Chancellor had made some unforgivable political choices:

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Caron Lindsay

Scotland passes landmark bill aimed at ending period poverty

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 25th November 2020 - 3:30 pm

It is unbelievable that in the third decade of the 21st century, people have to miss out on education because they can’t afford tampons or sanitary towels during their period.

In a 2018 survey, a quarter of respondents said they had struggled to access period products.

Yesterday, Scotland became the first country in the world to pass a law putting an obligation on local authorities to provide period products free of charge to anyone who needs them.

From the BBC:

The scheme will need to be operational

…

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Tahir Maher

Todays Press Release – 25th November 2020

By Tahir Maher | Wed 25th November 2020 - 1:45 pm

PRESS  RELEASE

Aid cut makes a mockery of ‘Global Britain’ promise

Responding to the Chancellor’s announcement that the foreign aid budget will be cut, Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Layla Moran said:
“Today the promise of ‘Global Britain’ became hollow. Shirking away from our global responsibilities by cutting development spending during a worldwide pandemic is short-sighted and wrong.
“The Liberal Democrats enshrined the 0.7% in law precisely so it was flexible with the economic reality. By changing the law the Government is breaking its promise to the British people and to the world’s poorest.
“The Liberal Democrats will always stand up for the life-changing power of UK aid, and I will work cross-party to oppose this callous move.”
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Jane Dodds

Domestic violence in Wales

By Jane Dodds | Wed 25th November 2020 - 9:03 am

November 25th is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Violence in the home has increased during Covid 19; contact during the lockdown period to Wales’ national helpline for women rose by 49% and call time trebled. During the national lockdown period, data from Counting Dead Women – a project that recalls the killing of women by men identified thirty-five murders with another twelve strongly suspected cases between March 23rd and the start of July.

Statistics in 2019 show that one in three women aged 16–59 will experience domestic abuse in her lifetime and that two women …

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Audrey Eager

The Late Late Toy Show – an Irish institution

By Audrey Eager | Tue 24th November 2020 - 4:57 pm

This Friday, Christmas in Ireland will officially begin. The institution that is The Late Late Toy Show will be aired live on RTE One and internationally on the RTE Player.

It is the job of the Irish emigrant to explain to her non-Irish friends exactly what the appeal of The Toy Show is. Why do grown adults drop everything to get the goodies in, get settled in for the evening and pretend that they are children again? Why does Ireland stop for this one night, and in this Covid world we currently live in, why is the Irish Government desperately working to set out the exit plan from lockdown in time for The Toy Show? What is it about this magical Toy Show that brings grown adults to their knees?

The Late Late Toy Show began as a segment on toys on The Late Late Show back in 1976. The legendary broadcaster, Gay Byrne, saw the appeal of this segment and grew it into a fully-fledged dedicated programme once a year. If you’re of a certain age, you will remember the cheesy children from various stage schools singing and dancing, you might remember the precocious children showing off the toys they were to demonstrate or you might remember the delightfully entertaining children who could not but put a smile on your face. The Toy Show is warm television viewing with a heart. The key to its success is its values – an expectation of what childhood should be like putting family at the core of it.

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NewsHound

LibLink: Norman Lamb – Government’s neglect of social care and mental health has been exacerbated by Covid

By NewsHound | Tue 24th November 2020 - 2:30 pm

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James Cox

“How many children will die?” is the question we should be asking on international aid.

By James Cox | Tue 24th November 2020 - 12:47 pm

Just half a decade after the Coalition enshrined 0.7% of GDP spending to go to international aid into law, the Conservative government looks set to rip it out this week.

Given Johnson’s penchant for populism and his Chancellor’s desire to get public spending back to pre-Covid levels, it is not surprising to see international aid attacked so passionately and so disproportionately. ‘Foreign aid’ has long been the whipping body of the right-wing press, Nigel Farage, and the Tax-Payers Alliance.

Much like the European Union and freedom of movement, international aid has gone largely undefended. Whilst we see obvious merit in funding …

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Paul Walter

Is it safe to come out now?

By Paul Walter | Tue 24th November 2020 - 10:30 am

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With the certification of Michigan’s 16 electoral votes yesterday, Donald Trump finally bowed to the inevitable and signalled his administration to co-operate with the incoming transitional team of Joe Biden.

No concession though, you’ll note.

John T Bennett, Washington Bureau chief of the Independent writes today:

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Fraser Coppin

Now is not the time for a return to austerity

By Fraser Coppin | Tue 24th November 2020 - 8:33 am

This week it looks likely that the Chancellor will announce a freeze on public sector pay and cuts to the foreign aid budget. There are also murmurings of more harsh spending cuts and tax rises on the way. If Sunak and the Tories are planning on a return to austerity then this would be a huge mistake, and the Liberal Democrats should oppose it.

There is no urgent need to cut spending or raise taxes right now. Borrowing is currently extremely cheap, and bond yields are likely going to remain low for a while. Even in the event that interest rates do start to rise, we can take the opportunity while costs are low now to borrow over a longer period of time, in fact we’re already borrowing over longer terms than any other OECD country so it’ll be a while before we have to start paying most of this debt back.

In these conditions policy makers can afford to be less constrained than they were in the past. There has never been a better time for some new ideas, and to build back better.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 39 Comments
Mark Valladares

23 November 2020 – a brief reflection at the end of the day…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 23rd November 2020 - 11:12 pm

It’s been a somewhat reassuring day at Liberal Democrat Voice, at least for yours truly. I’ve had some interesting, and positive responses to my opening thoughts, and we’ve published the sort of articles which remind me why I do this. Better still, we have three articles ready for tomorrow which reflect my sense that LDV should inform, entertain and challenge its readers.

And so, in the slot I usually use for Party press releases, and in the absence of any to publish, perhaps readers won’t mind if I offer something slightly wistful, and quintessentially English (even as I acknowledge his Welsh …

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Posted in News | 4 Comments
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