Katharine Pindar

Our party can seize on the spirit of the times

By Katharine Pindar | Fri 13th November 2020 - 9:59 am

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Liberalism’s answer to populism, I believe, is to give people what they really want, not what the forked tongues of populism tell them they want. Hopefully in the USA a majority has now chosen a President to give them what they really want.

But here in Britain we still have a populist Prime Minister with his inadequate government. There is still Lockdown, winter weather and seasonal colds and ‘flu yet to come – and the looming problems of Brexit, with or without a last-minute trade deal, before most of us can expect to share in a new vaccine.

There is some comfort in the government’s U-turn on providing vouchers for free school meals in each holiday, and in the continuation of the furlough scheme till March. We have been surprised at seeing a Tory government abandon their previous obsession with running down the Deficit, instead increasing it vastly, to save jobs and livelihoods and retain some spending power in the economy.

Yet this coming winter is likely to be a hard one, with many working-age people poorer if they have been on furlough, and especially if they have been made unemployed and are struggling to find a new job or restart their self-employment business. What will the government do then?

We know the Tory instinct will be to put up taxes – not to affect the wealthiest much, naturally, but to ask most people to contribute more. And among them, the millions of people now on welfare benefits will be expected to tighten their belts and ask no more than they can get now, inadequate as that is to prevent people falling into poverty.

However, the tide is turning. The British Social Attitudes Survey new annual report shows that the hardening of views on social security of the last few years has started to go into reverse. Their survey reveals attitudes have changed and this year more members of the public agree with the statement, ‘benefits are too low and cause hardship’ than last year. And fewer believe that ‘benefits are too high and discourage work’. This survey was conducted between July and October last year, so its findings are likely to be even more affirmed this year, when since March the number of people receiving Universal Credit has doubled to six million.

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Chris Bowers

Vaccine breakthrough takes our eye off the ball

By Chris Bowers | Thu 12th November 2020 - 12:30 pm

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Forgive me if I seem the pre-Christmas Scrooge, but I can’t get as excited as everyone else at the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that has sent share prices rocketing (or falling) and a member of Sage saying we’ll be back to normal by the spring. I feel we are in danger of taking our eye off the ball.

The tendency when any of us are faced with a big problem is to see if we can solve it with minimum effort. It’s understandable; our lives are fairly full, so problems are irritants. But sometimes a problem requires a structural rethink, demanding root and branch reform rather than just tinkering with a failing element of the whole.

Issues like Covid-19 and climate change are problems that demand root and branch reform of the way the world does business, yet we are treating them like irritants. With climate change, we know our lifestyles are warming the planet to dangerous levels, yet we cling to the hope that some technology – like electric cars or planes running on biofuels – can be invented to stop us having to confront how we live and allow us to go back with a clear conscience to the life we know.

It’s the same with Covid. Although we don’t know for certain what caused it, the most likely explanation is our breaking down the barriers between the human and animal realms, to the point where bats, pangolins and perhaps even mink mingle with humans and cause a highly contagious killer virus. We need to look at our global lifestyle and re-establish that barrier, among other things through eating less meat and leaving forests intact – measures that will also help in the fight against climate change.

Yet instead, we hope for the magic wand of technology in the form of a vaccine. To me, it has long felt like lazy journalism or lazy politics to throw in the half-sentence “until we have a vaccine” to any thought about the coronavirus. It’s as if we don’t want to face up to the need to address the fundamental failings in our modus vivendi, and that can be dangerous.

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Mary Reid

The Activate Fund supports two Lib Dem candidates

By Mary Reid | Thu 12th November 2020 - 9:55 am

The Guardian has covered the launch of the Activate Fund which supports women into politics – and the first two women to feature in the photo accompanying the article are both Lib Dems. So congratulations to April Preston and Nukey Proctor who have been endorsed by the fund, which is run by the Activate Collective.

Activate is funding 11 women running for five different parties in the spring local and mayoral elections across five parts of England – London, the Midlands, North East, North West, and Yorkshire and Humber. The list includes eight women of colour, one disabled woman and one care leaver. Seven of the 11 women are from low-income households or identify as working class.

April Preston is a Liberal Democrat candidate for Withington in next May’s Manchester City Council elections. She says:

I am absolutely delighted to have the backing of Activate Collective, a cross party group with the sole aim of improving political representation, their backing is vital for people like me not just in Manchester but across the country.

I along with my Liberal Democrat colleagues have worked tirelessly to demand better for our area and having their funding and support has given me the boost in motivation I need to make sure other people who are underrepresented get the support they need.

Nukey Proctor, a Liberal Democrat Council Candidate in Sherbourne Ward, Coventry City Council, is also endorsed, and says:

So excited to share that I’ve been been backed by Activate, a new UK fund supporting women from underrepresented groups to run for political office, today announces its first list of candidates.
I am beyond thrilled to be associated with this amazing initiative.

You can read more about both women here.

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Michael Meadowcroft

Labour Progressive?

By Michael Meadowcroft | Wed 11th November 2020 - 3:30 pm

I keep hearing siren party voices yet again hankering after a “progressive alliance” against the Conservatives. I firmly agree with John Pardoe’s adage of old that “a hatred of the Conservative party is the beginning of political wisdom”, but I fear that the very idea of the Labour party being “progressive” is, frankly, risible. It is one of the besetting chimeras of Liberals to have a dream that one day the Labour party will change. No-one who has challenged Labour in its industrial fiefs will succumb to such a fanciful concept. Labour believes in hegemony and control, and it has done since its early days. Once Ramsay Macdonald had negotiated the 1903 Pact with the gullible Herbert Gladstone and established a parliamentary foothold of thirty MPs, it then pursued its myopic single party aim without deviation. It prefers to be in opposition and to lose than to share any power. There is no better example than the first Labour government of 1924 which preferred to fall and to go into the electoral wilderness than to have even a minimal co-operation with the Liberals. Even in 2010, there was no possibility of a Lib-Lab coalition once Douglas Alexander had stated that they under no circumstances would they co-operate with the Scottish Nationalists.

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Kirsty Williams AM

Welsh Government News: Education Minister announces Christmas travel plan

By Kirsty Williams AM | Wed 11th November 2020 - 1:00 pm

A message from Kirsty Williams: –

Universities are working together to help students make safer plans for the end of term.

New covid-19 lateral flow tests, designed to diagnose people without symptoms, will be provided to students who are planning to travel home for the holiday.

Universities across Wales will also end face-to-face lessons in the week ending 8th December, allowing anyone who tests positive for coronavirus to self-isolate for 14 days before travelling home for the Christmas break.

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Mark Pack

November Report from the President

By Mark Pack | Wed 11th November 2020 - 11:30 am

I should start with a word of thanks – in fact, many words of thanks – to Kirsty Williams. She has announced that she will be standing down at the Welsh Senedd elections next May. As such a successful education minister in Wales, she is a daily demonstration of the difference that Liberal Democrats in power make. A consistently powerful voice for liberalism through all her many years of service, she has made such a big difference to so many lives. Thank you, Kirsty.

We need to get many more people like Kirsty elected in future. As the Thornhill Review …

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Johnny McDermott

We must stand ready to act if Trump tantrums risk tipping Afghanistan into chaos

By Johnny McDermott | Tue 10th November 2020 - 11:15 am

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President Trump’s ‘termination’ of Defense Secretary Mark Esper should come as no surprise (given the terminator’s temperament – and that’s before his convincing defeat at the hands of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris). Because Secretary Esper was ready to resign in the event of his Commander-in-Chief’s electoral victory. He’d already written the letter.

His reasons why seem clear enough. Having ordered his troops back to base, he made public his refusal to condone even the possibility of their deployment on the streets of D.C., least of all to gas peaceful protestors for a photo opportunity outside of a church whose Bishop denounced the abhorrent abuse of power that had enabled it. President-elect Biden has drawn upon his faith – whatever your own beliefs – several times since his election, citing phrases of the powerful book that President Trump wielded as a prop so disgracefully.

But President Trump’s reason for sacking Esper now seems less clear. Most assume petty vengeance, a President affecting what little power he has left to ‘take out’ those who dared oppose him. A sign he is still President, in his own mind, by yielding his authority, perhaps. Or worst, an indication he plans to fulfil a campaign promise and is in full preparation for a 2024 campaign. To ‘End the Endless Wars’. Bring the troops home. An impossible prospect, at present, that would leave the future President Biden in a bind. To reverse, or abandon the region?

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Michael Mullaney

A century since the birth of Roy Jenkins

By Michael Mullaney | Tue 10th November 2020 - 9:16 am

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The 11th of November is the 100th anniversary of the birth of a political giant who helped form the modern Liberal Democrat party.

Roy Jenkins made a huge political impact, firstly within the Labour party as a reforming Home Secretary in the 1960s bringing in reforming legislation on decriminalising homosexuality, modernising divorce laws, and liberalising censorship laws. Then as one of the four founding members of the SDP that was to merge with the Liberals to form the Liberal Democrats.

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Caron Lindsay

Heartbreaking report on the effects of housing insecurity on children

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 9th November 2020 - 12:15 pm

The Children’s Society has produced a report, Moving always Moving, on the effects of housing insecurity on children.

What does that actually mean in practice?

For the purpose of this report we define it in a way that most closely reflects the experiences of relevant participants, and there are three main elements to the way we conceptualise it: with reference to multiple moves, to those moves being involuntary, forced or reactive, and to those moves being related to poverty.

When I was Scottish Housing Spokesperson, every Christmas we would do a freedom of information request on the number of children in temporary accommodation at that time of year. Imagine what that must be like, not having your things around you, not knowing whether you might have to move at a moment’s notice and often being accommodated away from your support network and friends.

The effect of this on  physical and mental health, behaviour and educational attainment is profound:

It is clear that however it is labelled, poverty-related housing insecurity is associated with potential harm to children in terms of physical

and psychological health, health behaviours, risk-taking, ‘delinquent’ behaviour, emotional and social well- being, and education. The vast majority of the literature that paints this overall picture is quantitative. While statistical analyses are crucial to understanding the prevalence of broad trends and the strength of their effects, they are necessarily limited in terms of the depth of understanding they can enable about the lived reality of housing insecurity experienced over time.

If you are living in private rented accommodation, your landlord may decide to sell up for all sorts of reasons meaning you have to find somewhere else to live. If you have pets, it can be really difficult to find another private let and social housing is so difficult to get.  I spoke to someone who had had to move twice within ten months because of landlords selling up. And moving is not cheap, even in the best of circumstances. If you are living in poverty, the costs associated with constant moves are even more damaging and impact on your ability to provide even the basics.

Some of the stories in the report are absolutely heartbreaking.

All the moving that Tiffany had done, and in particular this latest move far from the things that structured her everyday life, affected her. It meant that currently she had a really long journey between ‘home’ and school, which in turn meant that she had relocated herself outside of her nominal home a temporary two bedroom flat where she had been placed with her mum) for more than half the week. It also meant that she felt stuck at school, unhappy
but trapped because moving schools would require knowing where home was.

Tiffany also felt a certain tension around where it was she belonged – she didn’t feel a strong attachment to her new area and still identified strongly with the place where she had lived before, but she knew it wasn’t really hers to call home anymore. When we asked if she was hoping to move again, she responded by talking about her mum – about how her mum was going to be moved because her current place was only temporary and they could move her at any time –
and she absented herself from the narrative completely, suggesting a lack of attachment to the area where she now officially lived (albeit temporarily).

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Caron Lindsay

Festival of Politics discusses racism, impact of Covid on people with disabilities, digital threats to democracy, Brexit and much more

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 9th November 2020 - 10:45 am

One of the very few upsides of this terrible year is that many festivals have gone digital and are free to access. I had a wonderful time at the Hay Festival and the Edinburgh International Book Festival earlier this year without leaving my sofa.

The weekend after next, from 19-21 November, the Scottish Parliament’s Festival of Politics goes online and it, also, is completely free. Politicans and experts will mull over the issues of the day.

There are discussions which are relevant across the whole of the UK covering a huge range of topics. I’m looking forward to the discussions on racism and how the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted on people with disabilities, particularly after reading this article on BBC News this morning in which one young woman says that she has had difficulties getting supplies for essential breathing equipment.

As well as the topics in the headline, there are also discussions on gender equality, the US elections and what we want to see in Scotland in 2030 and much more.

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The Voice

Monday morning humour – Saturday Night Live’s take on Biden and Harris’s win

By The Voice | Mon 9th November 2020 - 9:04 am

We’re all in need of a laugh these days.

Enjoy Saturday Night Live’s brilliant reaction to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris winning the US election:

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Caron Lindsay

ICYMI – Biden and Harris offer comfort and joy in first speeches

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 8th November 2020 - 6:55 pm

I did sigh a bit when it was announced that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden would be speaking at 8pm local time that night. After four days of sitting up till the wee hours waiting for that count to move off 253, I could have done with an early night.

There was no way I was going to miss it though. Especially as I’d sat up on Thursday to listen to Trump’s outburst. I had planned to go to bed at 11pm but at 10:50, he outgoing President (how lovely it is to write that) announced a press conference at 11:30.

I knew I’d regret if if I missed it almost as much as I’d regret it if I watched it. It was worth it for the reaction of the media. I don’t think we’ve talked about how huge a thing it was for MSNBC to actually pull away from him, saying that they weren’t going to broadcast his speech because what he was saying was false. CNN’s banners basically saying that he was alleging electoral fraud without evidence were a delight to see.

I knew that the Biden and Harris speeches would be much more edifying. Friday night’s hilarious episode of Gogglebox helped me stay awake and I poured myself a weird cocktail of maraschino cherry liqueur and amaretto. It’s kind of like a cherry bakewell… Strangely, I was so preoccupied that I didn’t even find out the Strictly spoiler.

Harris and Biden did not disappoint.  Kamala Harris’s speech which I mostly sobbed my way through brought so much joy. Her touching reference to Joe Biden’s son Beau, a friend of hers who died in 2015 was particularly poignant, as was the way she talked about the history she was making and how it should encourage girls to ‘dream with conviction and lead with ambition.

But while I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last, because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities. And to the children of our country, regardless of your gender, our country has sent you a clear message:

Dream with ambition, lead with conviction, and see yourselves in a way that others may not simply because they’ve never seen it before. But know that we will applaud you every step of the way.

Watch here:

Read the whole text here.

Joe Biden was much more inspiring than I expected, reaching out to all of America, including those who supported Donald Trump. We haven’t seen any of that these past four years. He has a good idea of what he wants to do at this challenging point in history:

Folks, America has always been shaped by inflection points, by moments in time where we’ve made hard decisions about who we are and what we want to be.

Lincoln in 1860, coming to save the union. FDR in 1932, promising a beleaguered country a New Deal. JFK in 1960, pledging a new frontier. And 12 years ago, when Barack Obama made history, he told us “Yes, we can.”

Well folks, we stand again at an inflection point. We have an opportunity to defeat despair, to build a nation of prosperity and purpose. We can do it. I know we can.

I’ve long talked about the battle for the soul of America. We must restore the soul of America. Our nation is shaped by the constant battle between our better angels and our darkest impulses. And what presidents say in this battle matters. It’s time for our better angels to prevail.

Tonight, the whole world is watching America. And I believe at our best, America is a beacon for the globe. We will not lead … we will lead not only by the example of our power but by the power of our example.

I’ve always believed — many of you’ve heard me say it — I’ve always believed we can define America in one word: Possibilities.

That in America everyone should be given the opportunity to go as far as their dreams and God-given ability will take them.You see, I believe in the possibilities of this country.

Watch the whole thing here.

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Caron Lindsay

A strange Remembrance Sunday

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 8th November 2020 - 11:05 am

It was so strange watching the Festival of Remembrance from a virtually empty Albert Hall last night.

This will be a very strange Remembrance Sunday. Most of the usual services have been cancelled.

I normally buy my poppies in the supermarket, but as they are out of bounds at the moment for me, and I’m sure for many of you, here is the link to the Royal British Legion’s poppy appeal in case you want to make a donation to support the work that the Legion does to support veterans and their families.

I took this photo at the Tower of London in November 2014. Between July and November 888,246 filled the grounds gradually, one for each British soldier who died during the First World War.

Here is Ed Davey’s message for Remembrance Sunday

Round the country other  senior Liberal Democrats have made their own reflections:

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Geoff Reid

Does unity require amnesty?

By Geoff Reid | Sun 8th November 2020 - 8:55 am
What will America do with Mr Trump when he ceases to be President? There will be those who believe that the relatively narrow margin of Biden’s victory means that America is still a bitterly divided country and that the healing process means that any question of prosecution would be a non-starter because it would ‘re-open the wounds”. Trumpism will not go away even in the unlikely event of the man himself disappearing into the sunset sometime in January. But national divisions are nothing like as simple as the binary choices of a two-horse race or a yes/no referendum.
Going against a majority view can be difficult for politicians but if it matters so much the voters have the option of sending them packing in due course. MPs who voted for the abolition of the death penalty were not, for the most part, punished by their constituents. We didn’t have council elections in the Mets in the May following the UK referendum but in 2018 many of us in the North were happy to be elected or re-elected in wards which voted heavily Leave, myself included. Because voters are human beings their political views can be more complex (sometimes contradictory) than we might like them to be.
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Caron Lindsay

Thank heavens for that! Tears all round as Harris and Biden finally win

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 7th November 2020 - 6:42 pm

It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster.

When I went to bed at 4:30 am on Wednesday I was so utterly miserable and depressed. It was looking like Trump might actually have won a second term with all the suffering and irreversible damage to the planet and division that would entail.

But, since then, it’s been looking like it was increasingly a matter of time until Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were declared the victors. That moment happened just before 4:30 pm this afternoon. I turned on the telly after an afternoon of delivering leaflets and dog walking just as the declaration was made. I would like to thank all my friends in various WhatsApp groups for helping me to say sane. The Scottish Lib Dem Women chat and the  chat which Steve Jolly set up must have had 3 million messages by now at least, and all of them have been therapeutic.

I’m not going to lie, the tears have not stopped much since then. And every time they seem to be about to stop, something like this happens:

Like many others, I’ve been addicted to CNN for the past 4 days. What a brilliant team they are. They are not afraid to call out the bullshit when they see it. John King, Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper, Abby Phillip, Alisyn Camerota and many others have all managed to make sense of what is going on. We are all more familiar with places we had never heard of. I feel like I need to visit Maricopa County, Eyrie County, Fulton County and the like, as the places where history was made.

One of the most powerful moments came from Van Jones this afternoon. Someone who has been on the sharp end of Trump’s divisive, racist actions over the past four years. It makes you realise the damage Trump has done. President and Trump are two words which should never have gone together.

Ed Davey has sent his congratulations to the winners

People around the world will now be breathing a huge sigh of relief. Over the past four years Donald Trump has fed a new divisive form of politics, testing American democracy to its very limits. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s victory isn’t just democratic, it may have saved US democracy.

“I’d like to congratulate Joe Biden and urge him not only to deliver on his promise to restore liberal values in the United States, but also to ensure the US will play a constructive role in the international battle to beat Coronavirus. The virus, like all of the world’s biggest problems, can only be solved if we work together as an international community.

“I hope Joe Biden will be a president who fights alongside progressives for social justice and climate action at home and abroad.”

Other Lib Dems also welcomed the news:

Typical Jamie

This day belongs not just to Kamala and Joe but to people like Stacey Abrams. Narrowly beaten in the Georgia governor’s race two years ago because of voter suppression, she served her revenge cold by trying to bust down the barriers Republicans put up. And she’s helped secure not one but two Georgia Senate run-offs on 5th January. One of the Democrats, Jon Ossoff, is a mate of Alistair Carmichael’s from his days trying to save Troy Davis from execution. And there’s also the Crooked Media team, former Obama staffers whose media and activist network has given us hours of pleasure over the past four years since they formed in the wake of Hillary’s defeat.

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Caron Lindsay

Alex Cole-Hamilton hails law giving children equal protection from assault

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 7th November 2020 - 9:24 am

Today is an important day in Scotland.

The law giving children equal protection from assault becomes law.

It’s always seemed very strange to me that if I were to slap a 6 foot 4 adult, I’d find myself on an assault charge, but it would be fine for me to slap a 3 foot 2 child. It’s a pretty gross abuse of power and people can retain the memories of these incidents for years after. They cast a very long shadow.

It’s an important step because it sets out very clearly that hitting anyone to make them submit to your will is an abuse of power that we will not tolerate.

And one of the strongest advocates of this measure is our own Alex Cole-Hamilton. I spent ten years trying to get that man into Holyrood for one major reason – because he would be a brilliant advocate for young people. And he has been. On the smacking issue, on campaigning for a much greater rise in the age of criminal responsibility than the SNP Government was prepared to implement, on calling for care leavers to be properly looked after and many other issues, he has been the young person’s best friend in the Scottish Parliament.

On today’s milestone, he said:

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: THE Election

By Tom Arms | Fri 6th November 2020 - 8:30 pm

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Hope is a terrible emotion. It too often leads to despair. But an almost overwhelming hope is the dominant emotion for all those supporting a Biden victory in the US presidential elections.

As I write this the election remains in the balance. No bookkeeper will give a Trump victory any odds. Biden is almost certain to win, but the emphasis is still on the words “almost” and “hope”.

Just when Biden can give his uncontested victory speech is unknown. Trump will not concede. The president has made it clear that he will contest the election result in the courts—right up to the Supreme Court; even though almost no respectable legal eagle believes Trump has grounds for his claims of a fraudulent election.

But the president’s business success was largely based on highly suspect legal triumphs and he will use his unrivalled experience in the courts to keep Biden out of the house and job which he claims as his exclusive preserve.

Then there is the cloud of violence hanging over America. So far there have only been a handful of incidents. But the fact is that Trump supporters are dramatically extreme – and often armed – in support for their man.

Biden has asserted that he will be a unifying president for all Americans. The problem is that rural and small town America have felt ignored for years. They believe that their way of life has been marginalised, under-valued, and under-represented by a coalition of patronising degree-wielding urbanites and non-whites who threaten their values.

If Biden wins, the man from Delaware may also face problems with Congress. America’s checks and balances system means that for an administration to be effective it needs a majority of support in the House of Representatives and Senate. The Democrats have held onto their plurality in the lower house but, for the time being, The Republicans have control of the Senate. This may change in January when there will be two Senate run-offs because of Georgia’s convoluted election laws.

A defeated Trump is unlikely to take the accepted route of retiring to his Florida mansion to work on his memoirs and presidential library. During the campaign, son-in-law Jared Kushner, was busy organising a future platform which is likely to become Trump Television. This will enable Trump to broadcast vitriol, personal insults and dangerously false conspiracy theories to undermine a Biden Administration, and prepare a 2024 bid for the White House either for himself or one of his children.

If Biden does succeed then there is hope. Joe is recognised as one of the most honourable politicians in Washington who strongly believes in the rule of law as laid down in the US constitution. In contrast, Trump twists the law to work only through friends prepared to swear feudal fealty to him personally.

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Mary Reid

Why does it take so long to count votes?

By Mary Reid | Fri 6th November 2020 - 2:32 pm

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I’m not an expert on elections in the USA, but am I the only one to be puzzled about the length of time it is taking to count the votes?

I have been seriously drawn into this election, staying up for a silly length of time watching CNN, which does seem to give the clearest coverage. I do appreciate that each state sets up its local voting arrangements, and that this privilege is enshrined in the Constitution. As a result, states vary enormously in how efficient they are at counting ballots.

The rules about mail-in/absentee/postal voting vary, so that in some states (and crucially in most of the swing states) they are only opened after the in-person votes are counted.

In the UK, postal votes are opened and verified in batches as they arrive at the Council, then locked away securely. Verification involves checking that the ballot paper is a genuine one and that the signature matches the one given on the application form. At the count, after the polls close, the ballot papers from the polling stations are verified by being counted and the total checked against the numbers of electors recorded at each polling station. But once the postal and non-postal ballots have been verified they are all mixed together, so that each counting officer is given a random collection of ballot papers to sort into baskets labelled with the candidates’ names. (Apologies to you activists who know all this already…)

Postal ballots must reach the Council before polling day, or can be handed in at a polling station on the day. Unlike the situation in some states in the US, postal votes that arrive late in the UK are not counted.

Having attended many election counts in the UK, some as a candidate, some as a counting agent, I can see how labour intensive the process is. In spite of that, most of our counts finish overnight, only occasionally spilling over into the next day, even though polling goes on until 10pm. So, apart from the necessary delay in dealing with late arriving mail-in votes where they are allowed, why are the American ones taking so long?

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ALDC

Kickstart – and more

By ALDC | Fri 6th November 2020 - 1:16 pm

ALDC’s training weekend, Kickstart, is going online and completely free this year (28 & 29 November 2020). Sitting along side it are the Councillors Weekend and specialist training for Agents, Organisers and Affinity Publisher.

There are hundreds of campaigners across the country already signed up, and you can join them completely by signing up completely free before November 13th.

The event includes 30 hours of top quality training, amazing keynote speakers including our own President Mark Pack and the Leader of the Alliance Party in Northern Ireland, Naomi Long.

Kickstart also includes bespoke mentoring for you and your team. This year the team at ALDC are providing that same high level of support online.

If you’re not already familiar with Kickstart, it’s the party’s biggest training weekend, a top networking event and a great chance to hone your skills ahead of next year’s elections.

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Mary Reid

LibLink: William Wallace on the House of Lords

By Mary Reid | Fri 6th November 2020 - 10:00 am

Last week The Yorkshire Post published an article by William Wallace on “House of Lords plays vital role in democracy but needs reform“.  William is our spokesperson for the Cabinet in the House of Lords.

In the article he writes:

The House of Lords is indefensible in its current form.  But it plays a vital role in our executive-dominated democracy.

Formally, the UK has parliamentary sovereignty.  But when one party has a secure parliamentary majority, government proposals usually sail through the Commons without careful examination. A former Conservative Lord Chancellor once described British democracy as ‘elective dictatorship’ – when his own party was in government.  The Lords is the chamber that examines bills and regulations in detail, forces ministers to justify them clause by clause, and quietly wins concessions before they become law.

He lays down this challenge:

Are you a democrat or a supporter of strong government?

If you are a democrat, you have to support reform of the Commons as well as the Lords, and tackle the weakness of local and regional representation as well.  If you believe in strong government, beware that governments without parliamentary challenge become authoritarian and corrupt, and take note that billions of pounds have been handed out to large consultancies and outsourcing companies this year without open contracts, that many of these companies contribute to Conservative funds, and that retiring ministers are offered large sums to advise them.

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The Voice

LibLink: Vince Cable on Biden and Trump post election

By The Voice | Thu 5th November 2020 - 6:47 pm

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Vince Cable has just published an article on The Independent: “Biden faces a war on many fronts – Trump has the tools to make the presidency a poisoned chalice“.  He considers the worrying consequences of Trump losing but still able to call upon substantial support.

Trump’s career in the New York property market owed much to the deployment of batteries of lawyers to intimidate and out-manoeuvre his competitors. Every legal argument in the book will be deployed to block or invalidate the postal ballots which have tipped the balance in key states. If he can get a case in front of the Supreme Court, he calculates that the justices will forget their oath of impartiality and remember their political debt to the president who appointed them.

It is rumoured he then plans to challenge the make-up of the electoral college. There is also the possible scenario I described in this column three weeks ago, where uncertainty generated by the legal challenges leads to people taking the law into their own hands, leading to a state of emergency and – in effect – a coup d’etat.

However, Republicans like Mitch McConnell …

… will have no truck with legal chicanery designed to frustrate the election result.

Even if Trump’s attempts to reverse the result fail, and he reluctantly agrees to leave the White House, he has plenty of options to make life for the new president somewhere between very difficult and impossible.

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The Voice

Alistair Carmichael’s Commons First “President-Elect Biden”

By The Voice | Thu 5th November 2020 - 6:15 pm

Alistair Carmichael had a Commons first today. He was the first person in the UK Parliament to refer to President-Elect Biden.

He was presenting his Bill to tackle plastic pollution. When Speaker Dame Rosie Winterton asked him when it would be debated, he said “Nine days after President-Elect Biden’s inauguration.”

If he has tempted fate, he will be in massive amounts of trouble…

So what is his bill about?

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Mary Reid

Isolation diary update: Isolating again

By Mary Reid | Thu 5th November 2020 - 5:00 pm

The view across London from Epsom Downs, with quarter of a rainbow

So lockdown comes to England again, but it doesn’t make much of a difference to us.  Ian has received an email from Matt Hancock reminding him that he is “clinically extremely vulnerable” – which is hardly news to him. It advises him to stay at home as much as possible but to go outside for exercise and to attend health appointments.

We have been doing exactly that for the last three weeks, impatient once again with the slow response by the Government to the widespread re-emergence of Covid-19. Back in the summer our local Council and hospital were preparing for a second wave in October, so it was hardly unexpected.

However, there are some crucial differences for us this time. In the first lockdown we literally did not leave our house, apart from a trip to the hospital, from mid-March to the end of June. Looking back that seems an extraordinary thing to have done. Actually, it didn’t feel like a hardship for us at the time – the weather was good and we have a small garden – although I appreciate that it was really tough for many people.

Since then we have been going out for walks almost every day, and, when we were allowed to drive a short distance, we started exploring many places we hadn’t been to before. It has been a revelation – we have found three beautiful lakes, riverside paths, ancient heathland, and many walks through the woods, all within three or four miles of our home.

This time we are being encouraged to go out for exercise, which does make sense as it feels a very safe thing to do. Other walkers are always careful when passing and we never stand within 2 metres of anyone else.

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Mary Reid

Mike Dixon on lessons from the US election

By Mary Reid | Thu 5th November 2020 - 12:52 pm

Mike Dixon, Chief Executive of the Liberal Democrats, has written to members, musing on the US elections. It’s worth quoting at length:

I woke up this morning to Trump saying he’d won the election and that no more votes should be counted.

I can’t remember a darker speech by a major world leader in my lifetime.

A lot will be written about this election. But here are two important lessons for us:

  1. Campaigns run into trouble when they pull back on contacting voters.It looks like the Democrats stopping knocking on doors because of coronavirus – with the Republicans continuing – in some key areas has mattered a lot. Over the coming months before the elections in May, we need to keep talking to voters and getting our message across – safely and responsibly.

    There is a lot we can do through lockdown.

    Don’t give up or hunker down.

  2. Many people hoped this result would be a firm rejection of a divisive, fake news approach to campaigning.

    It hasn’t been.

    And that means the tactics Trump has used will be adopted even more aggressively in May and in 2024 by many of our political opponents.

The rollercoaster of emotion we’ve all felt today must be a wake up call. We can’t take anything for granted.

You can take action to stand up for a better, fairer world.

Yours in the fight for a better future,

Mike Dixon
CEO of the Liberal Democrats

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The Voice

LibLink: Jamie Stone on the digital revolution

By The Voice | Thu 5th November 2020 - 10:11 am

Jamie Stone is the Lib Dem spokesperson for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and he has written an article “Ministers must ensure no one is left behind by the digital revolution” in The House magazine.

Talking of his constituents in Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, he writes:

Many still do not have access to any broadband, let alone high-speed broadband. With such poor infrastructure, it is virtually impossible to conceive of how communities like mine can avoid being left behind as this digital revolution continues apace.

But I beg the Government to do more to invest in those communities that are currently not well-served by digital technologies to make sure we do not fall through the net of progress.

To date, in my patch, we have seen post offices, banks and other services disappear at a rate of knots, leaving my constituents strapped for cash (not that anyone is taking cash these days), and unable to access basic financial services without – in many cases – driving for miles and miles. For those who are not mobile, the growing isolation they face is extremely alarming.

He refers to the ways in which jobs are changing as technology evolves:

Many of the millions of people who may face redundancy as a result of Covid-19 will be terrified that they will not be able to find new work, because they simply don’t have the relevant skills to break through.

That is why I am joining my colleague Daisy Cooper, Liberal Democrat Education Spokesperson, in calling on the Government to back our party’s plan for ‘Skills Wallets’, which would give everyone £10,000 to spend on life-long education and training.

This would be made up of an initial £4,000 Government investment when people turn 25, a further £3,000 when they turn 40 and, finally, another £3,000 at the age of 55.

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Paul Walter

A stunning speech from Joe Biden

By Paul Walter | Wed 4th November 2020 - 10:52 pm

Posted in LDVUSA | Tagged | 9 Comments
Mark Valladares

4 November 2020 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Wed 4th November 2020 - 10:30 pm
  • Attempts to undermine US democratic process must be condemned by UK Government
  • Fixing test and trace must be priority for Government during national lockdown
  • Tories have betrayed their promise to protect British farmers

Attempts to undermine US democratic process must be condemned by UK Government

The Liberal Democrats have warned any attempts to undermine the democratic process in the US must be condemned by the UK Government.

The call comes in response to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab failing to condemn Donald Trump’s incorrect claims of victory in the US election.

Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesperson Layla Moran said:

We must not come to any premature conclusion about the election result, regardless of what the President or his campaign are saying.

Now is the time for peace and patience in the US, and for trust in the democratic process.

Any attempt to undermine that must be condemned by the UK Government and the international community in the strongest terms.

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Paul Walter

Biden on course to win

By Paul Walter | Wed 4th November 2020 - 7:17 pm

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On your behalf, I have been carefully watching the US results as they come in.

It seems highly likely that Joe Biden will be the 46th President of the United States of America.

He’s already flipped Arizona, the Nebraskan 2nd District and Wisconsin.

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Paul Walter

Trump’s claim of electoral fraud – “historic and historically awful”

By Paul Walter | Wed 4th November 2020 - 8:00 am

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I’ve managed to get a good bit of sleep.

There are hopeful signs that Joe Biden has a path to win the US election, but we’ll have to be patient while the votes are counted. There are already hopeful signs from Arizona and Nebraska’s second district. I have also seen results from Wisconsin’s Dane County which are encouraging.

Just a few minutes ago I witnessed one of the most insane and disgraceful events in American political history.

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Paul Walter

OPEN THREAD: Discussion of US election results as they come in

By Paul Walter | Tue 3rd November 2020 - 11:00 pm

Paul writes..

 

Please use the comments thread below to discuss the US election results as they come in.

Here are a few links which may help you get your head round what to expect and when to expect it:

FiveThirtyEight has an excellent guide to the timings of the vote counts. Bear in mind that there are vastly more postal votes than usual this time. So results in some key states will not be available on election night.

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Posted in LDVUSA | Tagged | 30 Comments
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