Rhys Taylor

Reflections on exam results and our Minister

By Rhys Taylor | Tue 18th August 2020 - 11:26 am

I have a confession to make. I think that Kirsty Williams is bloody brilliant.

As if it wasn’t enough being the sole Welsh Liberal Democrat elected to the Welsh Parliament and the most senior non-Labour politician in Wales, then there was COVID.

The pandemic demanded an incredible amount from our schools and the wider education system. More or less overnight, schools became childcare hubs for keyworkers with teachers delivering blended learning, undertaking wellbeing checks, providing packed-lunches and so much more.

Oh, and in Wales they were busy preparing for the first ever made-in-Wales curriculum, the biggest piece of education legislation – possibly the biggest pieces of legislation ever put before the Senedd. Led by our own Kirsty Williams.

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Steve Trevethan

Is electoral reform the last thing we need?

By Steve Trevethan | Tue 18th August 2020 - 10:08 am

The last thing we need is electoral reform because we need to think and work in a sequence which results in genuine electoral reform.

The word “genuine” is included because Neo-Liberals, their fellow travellers and their “useful ill-informeds” use the word to describe financial and economic changes which are to the detriment of the general public.

To quote economist Michael Hudson:

The IMF (International Monetary Fund) and kindred Washington consensus bodies demand labour market “reforms” that would reverse the 20th century workplace reforms. The word “reform” is now attached to any policy as an advertising slogan.

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Rupinder Singh

Crisis in Belarus and possible EU and UK policy response

By Rupinder Singh | Tue 18th August 2020 - 8:15 am

#Живёт Беларусь – two words that are the rallying cry for what appears to be a tipping point for the Lukashenko regime with mass strikes at factories, schools, TV anchors resigning and signs that security forces are refusing to follow orders or resigning. Despite the repeat of the Lukashenko play book of arresting or brute elimination of opposition figures, the country coalesced around an unlikely figure in the form of a quiet housewife who has fired up the imagination and bamboozled the regime. It is also a test of how the West, the EU and most notably the UK in …

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Tagged | 8 Comments
Mark Valladares

17 August 2020 – today’s press release

By Mark Valladares | Mon 17th August 2020 - 11:30 pm

PM must apologise over grade award “shambles”

Ahead of the expected announcement that all A level and GCSE pupils in England are to get their teacher assessed grade, Liberal Democrat Education Spokesperson Layla Moran said:

Despite the warnings, the Education Secretary’s botched handling of grade awards has left countless young people stressed and anxious. The Prime Minister must show leadership and personally apologise for his Government’s shambles.

This expected U-turn is victory for common sense and rightly answers calls from Liberal Democrats and others, but it should never have gotten this far.

While it is embarrassing for the Government, it has been excruciating for

…

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Joe Otten

The conceptual error behind the A level fiasco

By Joe Otten | Mon 17th August 2020 - 3:10 pm

On day zero we heard of some horrendous downgrades. Perhaps that was just anecdote. No longer. Clearly now we are in the realm of overwhelming evidence that the awarded grades are not a fair indication. Every single FE college responding to a survey covering half of all colleges report lower grades than in previous years. Large numbers of independent schools are bragging about record high grades. The stolen A*s have been awarded to others and the top university places have therefore largely been taken.

In principle, an algorithm could be fair from one school to the next, giving effectively each school its prior attainment. Clearly the algorithm hasn’t done this and therefore clearly it contains errors.

Even without these errors, the concept that if your centre expects a U to be awarded, then somebody has to be given a U, however well they are actually performing, is grotesque. But this is the concept, and it applies to all the grades below the level you are performing at, not just the Us.

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Jo Hayes

On reforming the Liberal Democrat organisation

By Jo Hayes | Mon 17th August 2020 - 2:20 pm

Last September I stood for election to the Federal Board because I was aware of things which had gone wrong and needed to be put right. I didn’t expect my term of office, if elected, to start with picking up the pieces after a catastrophic general election. But it did.

The Thornhill Review has called for change, including to the Federal Board: a huge, sprawling thing with 35 voting members, the influence of any one of whom is very dilute. The Board would be better if it were less than half its current size. But whose seats should go? It …

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Posted in Op-eds and Party policy and internal matters | Tagged | 17 Comments
Mark Argent

The next coalition?

By Mark Argent | Mon 17th August 2020 - 8:15 am

Does soul-searching over the 2010–15 coalition leave Liberal Democrats in danger of failing to take the credit for our real achievements in government and undermining our relevance by being reluctant to try again?

Even before the arrival of Covid19 we were in turbulent times. British politics since the referendum has been highly dysfunctional.

In the 2019 General Election, my sense was that the Tories and Labour had lurched to extremes. On the doorstep I found even Remain supporters switching from us to the Tories for fear of a Corbyn-led government. Labour seemed to have prioritised ideological purity over electability, which was the place from which they were attacking us over the coalition.

Under normal circumstances, their choosing, in Keir Starmer, a leader who would be a credible Prime Minister would change everything and point to a revival of their fortunes and ours. As it is, the proposed changes to constituency boundaries are likely to favour the Tories. If the country is to move away from having an anti-European, authoritarian and incompetent government, we will need to work with Labour — which has to include the possibility of coalition.

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Mark Valladares

15-16 August 2020 – the weekend’s press release

By Mark Valladares | Sun 16th August 2020 - 11:30 pm

Algorithm used for A-Levels and GCSEs should be scrapped

Responding to reports that the exams regulator is reviewing its guidance on how to appeal A-level and GCSE grades using mock exam results, just hours after publishing it, Liberal Democrat Education Spokesperson Layla Moran said:

Young people are being let down, and the confusion and uncertainty emanating from the Government is only making the situation worse. Things are getting ridiculous.

There has been mistake after mistake after mistake with Gavin Williamson over the last few of months.

The algorithm used for A-Level grades has clearly not worked and therefore should be scrapped with teacher grades

…

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Mary Reid

Exam grades and what they should have done

By Mary Reid | Sun 16th August 2020 - 2:51 pm

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In this post: Exam Results and Gradings Ianto Stevens explained how and why examiners moderate exam results to try to smooth out inconsistencies from year to year. Some of this was to compensate for variations in the difficulty of exam papers. The overall aim was to give the same balance of grades as in previous years.

For example, suppose on a particular A Level physics paper, students across the country get markedly higher marks than in previous years. Examiners will assume that the students are of much the same ability as previous cohorts and that the variations are due to the questions asked and the marking guidelines. It is almost impossible to write a series of exam papers that produce the same range of results each time.

The problem this year was that this legitimate moderation process was applied not to actual written exam papers but to teacher’s predictions.

I spent many years teaching and organising A level and BTEC courses in a large FE college. Each year the whole of my Easter break was devoted to assessing and ranking coursework projects for some 60 A level Computing students. And, of course, I had to provide predicted grades which I based on their AS levels, mock exams and the state of their coursework at the time when the predictions had to be submitted.

I do understand why there was a reluctance to simply award the students with the grades predicted by their teachers. If that had happened then the overall grades would have been significantly higher than in previous years. The consequence would have been that a higher number of students would have met the conditions set by universities, so there was a danger that courses might have been oversubscribed. Universities always offer more places than they can fill, on the basis that not all will qualify.

So, to avoid a glut of qualified students, the raw predicted grades were treated as though they were actual marks and were moderated to bring them in line with other years. What is more, the moderation was applied at the level of an individual school or college rather than across the whole exam entry cohort – a granular application of a holistic method.

I will argue that it was not necessary to moderate the grades at all, but first let’s take a look at the procedure that was adopted. The actual predicted grades were ignored and the rankings used instead. These were mapped on to the spread of grades achieved in that subject, in that school or college, over several previous years. So if in previous years, on average, 5% had been awarded a U (ie fail), then the bottom 5% in the ranked list this year would be given a U, and so on across all the grades.

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Caron Lindsay

Conference early bird discount runs out soon

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 16th August 2020 - 9:16 am

Don’t miss out on your chance to register for our new shiny virtual conference at the early bird discounted rate of £30. The deadline is this Thursday and after that you will have to pay more.

Federal Conference Committee were given a demo of the finalised version of the software this week and even the most normal cynical were, I understand, impressed.

Scotland held a one day trial of the Hopin platform last month and, despite a few inevitable teething troubles, it worked well.

The best advice I can give you is to make sure that you play around with it …

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The Voice

Three opportunities to see Layla and Ed this weekend

By The Voice | Sat 15th August 2020 - 12:16 pm

After a brief five day hiatus, there are more opportunities to put our leadership candidates through their paces this weekend.

Tonight, at 7pm, is the North West hustings. Register here.

Tomorrow, there are two events. Liberal Democrats Abroad at 2pm and the Equality and Diversity hustings at 7:30 pm.

You don’t actually have to remember to register in advance. You can just watch the livestream here.

Ballot papers are now all out. If the party has an email address for you, you will have received your ballot online. If you can’t find it, search for “Alan Masters” and make sure it hasn’t gone into your junk or spam. If the party doesn’t have an email address, then you will be one of the 8000 or so people who will have received a ballot by post.

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Caron Lindsay

Kirsty Williams, the one competent education secretary in the UK

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 15th August 2020 - 8:44 am

It’s been a hell of a couple of weeks for exam students. Highers and A level results play a huge role in determining the course of your life. If you don’t get the grades you need to fulfil your aspirations, you have to rethink your whole life. And you will carry those grades around for your whole life.

The question of whether we should have a system that puts so much stress on our young people is up for debate, but that’s for another day.

We know, though, that there are clear differences between the nations of the UK. In Scotland and England, the whole thing has been a disaster. However, in Wales, our Kirsty Williams has presided over a system that she argues has credibility because it guarantees that AS level results from last year will be the minimum grade for this year. That is a system that was scrapped by one Michael Gove in England.

Watch her statement about the way the results have been calculated:

Watch this interview she gave ahead of the announcement of the grades:

Listen to Kirsty talk to Andrew Castle on LBC here. 

Because we have maintained a system whereby AS-levels forms a significant proportion of a final A-level grade, we were able to us that in the moderation process and able to put in a safety net for students so they could not drop below their previous AS Level grade.

“The ability to do that has been very helpful, because those were exams which were set, taken in the same conditions and were externally assessed.

“That can give students, universities and employers real confidence in them”.

She also cast doubt on the validity of giving grades based on mock exams,

“Some schools don’t do mock examinations,” Ms Williams explained.

“Some use mock examinations as a way to boost confidence and deliver them in a way that perhaps they are there to encourage people.

“Other schools use them as a tool of encouragement in the other way, they will mark them really hard so that people don’t get complacent.

“Each school has a different approach which we believe is right for them.”

The Welsh Lib Dems had some clear messaging about results:

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Mark Valladares

15 August 2020 – the overnight press release

By Mark Valladares | Sat 15th August 2020 - 7:30 am

Appeals cost u-turn alone will be cold comfort, Liberal Democrats warn

Responding to reports that the Government will cover costs of all appeals after thousands of students have not secured places at their first choice universities due to downgraded results, Liberal Democrat Education Spokesperson Layla Moran said:

For the young people who have worked so hard to not get the results they deserve, through no fault of their own, this annoucement alone will be cold comfort.

While this should never have been needed, it is right the Government has listened to the Liberal Democrats and others and u-turned.

Ministers must also now ensure that

…

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Mark Valladares

14 August 2020 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Fri 14th August 2020 - 10:30 pm
  • Liberal Democrats call on Williamson to resign in the face of grades chaos
  • Plummeting health visitor numbers demand action, Liberal Democrats warn

Liberal Democrats call on Williamson to resign in the face of grades chaos

Liberal Democrat Education spokesperson Layla Moran has described Gavin Williamson as “out of his depth” and said that he must go in the wake of yesterday’s “shambolic” grade outcomes.

Moran’s push for Williamson to resign follows criticism of the Secretary of State’s errors through the COVID-19 crisis, from the failure to ensure disadvantaged pupils had access to remote learning devices to botched efforts to open schools more widely before the pandemic was under control.

The Party are calling for all pupils to have a right to appeal their grade awards with no charge, and the chance to sit the examinations at the earliest possible date at no cost. They are further demanding that the Government urge universities to be lenient in admissions requirements.

Liberal Democrat Education Spokesperson Layla Moran said:

The shambolic handling of A-level results has left many young people in crisis. Despite the warning signs from Scotland, the Education Secretary pushed ahead with plans which ignored teachers’ advice and have disproportionately affected pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. With this unfair system, he has created untold confusion and distress.

Gavin Williamson is an Education Secretary out of his depth and out of excuses. He must take responsibility for his mistakes and step down with immediate effect. Our young people and our country cannot afford these blunders to continue into September, ahead of a potential second wave.

If the Government continue to refuse to put their trust in teachers predictions, they must ensure every pupil has the right to appeal free of charge, and the opportunity to sit these examinations should they wish. We also need to see clear guidance from the Government to universities to ensure greater leniency in admissions decisions.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: I am an immigrant

By Tom Arms | Fri 14th August 2020 - 11:14 am

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I am an immigrant. I emigrated from the United States to the United Kingdom on the 12th of December 1971.

I had studied for a year in Britain 18 months before and fell in love with the country and one of its citizens and moved back despite the dreary weather and traffic jams.

I did not flee a Middle Eastern War. I did not turf up at Heathrow claiming political persecution. Neither was I escaping a life of poverty in an African mud hut. In fact, if I had stayed in America I would probably be enjoying a comfortable country club existence.

Nevertheless, I feel an affinity with African, Asian, Hispanic, or any person from any race or country who left their homeland to seek a new life. It is not easy to leave the safety net of cultural familiarity, family and friends.

If you are born to a country your acceptance is automatic. As an immigrant you have to constantly prove your worth and justify your decision to uproot your entire life and start afresh.

I feel I have succeeded. I started an international news agency which launched the careers of well over a hundred journalists. My children are all a credit to me as are the 200 boys – many of them now young me – who have passed through my scout group over the past 20 years.

I am not boasting. In fact, I don’t regard myself as particularly unusual. Immigrants in every country have outstanding records of contributing to their adopted homelands.

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Mark Valladares

14 August 2020 – the overnight press releases

By Mark Valladares | Fri 14th August 2020 - 7:30 am
  • Rise in discrimination towards BAME people since lockdown must be tackled
  • Government must compensate people forced to miss work in order to quarantine

Rise in discrimination towards BAME people since lockdown must be tackled

Responding to a University College London study that found BAME groups were most likely to report facing discrimination since lockdown began, Liberal Democrat Equalities Spokesperson Christine Jardine said:

Everyone should be free to live their lives without fear of discrimination, abuse or violence. Reports that Black, Asian and minority ethnic people have been most likely to experience discrimination since lockdown began is deeply alarming.

All of us with a public platform must stand up to those whose language and actions spread hate – whether based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or anything else.

The Home Secretary must step up and tackle this appalling trend head-on. That work must be part of a wider effort to tackle systemic racial inequality, which is why the Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to implement a Race Equality Strategy.

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Mark Valladares

13 August 2020 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Thu 13th August 2020 - 11:35 pm
  • Millions of EU citizens living with uncertainty must be given right to stay
  • Appeals process critical to ensure grade awards do not “derail” students’ futures
  • Record NHS waiting lists point to another health crisis, Liberal Democrats warn

Millions of EU citizens living with uncertainty must be given right to stay

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 millions are still awaiting a final decision.

The latest EU Settlement Scheme statistics, published this morning, reveal 4,600 people have been refused Settled Status, while 1,475,500 have only been granted temporary ‘Pre-Settled Status’ and 212,400 are still waiting for a decision.

Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson Christine Jardine said:

For far too long, millions of EU citizens in the UK have been living under a cloud of uncertainty. Boris Johnson cannot be allowed to continue to break his promise to them.

With so many people being refused Settled Status, granted only temporary ‘Pre-Settled Status’ or still waiting for a decision, it’s clear that this Conservative Government’s scheme is anything but automatic.

And without physical proof of their rights, EU citizens will be at the mercy of the Conservatives’ Hostile Environment. They must not become the victims of a new Windrush-style scandal.

That is why Liberal Democrats have called for EU citizens to be given the automatic right to stay in the UK, with the physical proof they need.

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Layla Moran MP

Layla Moran writes …Tackling the environmental crisis from the bottom up

By Layla Moran MP | Thu 13th August 2020 - 5:28 pm

Each week, LDV invites the leadership candidates to write a post for us. This is Layla’s post for this week. 

The climate and nature emergencies are the greatest threats our country – and humankind – face. Climate change is not under control. Worldwide, deforestation and the destruction of habitats continue at a terrifying rate, with catastrophic impacts on wildlife.

This is why, alongside the economy and education, I’ve made the environment one of my campaign themes. My ambition as leader is to make our Liberal voice heard clearly on the environment and to recapture our position as the most innovative and credible party on environmental policy. In turn, this will enable us to build coalitions for action, and to attract support from Labour, Green and Tory voters concerned about the threat to the environment.

Several of the key actions have to be taken by the government. This includes accelerating investment in renewable power, an emergency programme of energy efficiency retrofits for homes, converting the natural gas network to hydrogen, investing in public transport, speeding up the transition to electric vehicles and creating incentives to expand ‘carbon sinks’ through planting trees, restoring peatlands and supporting innovation in carbon dioxide removal technologies. If we move fast enough on all these fronts, we can put the UK on a path not just to net-zero but to net negative emissions.

But government – particularly central government – can’t do it all by itself. They have to take the public with them – which means stressing that tackling the climate and nature emergencies is a shared effort, in which everyone – individuals, households, communities, businesses, investors, farmers, teachers, scientists, engineers, local and national government – has a role to play.

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The Voice

LibLink: Rabina Khan on the treatment of migrants

By The Voice | Thu 13th August 2020 - 11:37 am

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Cllr Rabina Khan is written in The Independent under the headline: ‘The treatment of migrants crossing the Channel is plain wrong and against British values.’ Rabina is a councillor in Tower Hamlets and Special Advisor to Lib Dem peers.

She writes:

Home secretary Priti Patel tells us the UK government is committed to “shutting down” routes used by migrants crossing the Channel to the south coast and disassembling the criminal gangs “making fortunes” enabling the illegal crossings to take place.

And whose fault is it anyway? Well, the French of course – as far as the government is concerned. If the French stopped the migrants putting to sea on their side of the Channel, our brave Border Force officers would not have to be dragging them out of their deflating dinghy on English soil.

…

Does anyone truly believe this will stop desperate people crossing dangerous waters in search of sanctuary and safety? It will not. The government often speaks of its admiration for the Australian points system for refugees. The way we treat these sad souls arriving from war zones, refugee camps and the deserts of North Africa needs no rating – it is plain wrong.

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Mark Valladares

12 August 2020 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Wed 12th August 2020 - 11:15 pm
  • GDP figures show need for more radical action from Government
  • Using mock exams won’t resolve grade award crisis
  • Welsh Liberal Democrats launch campaign calling for Rishi Sunak not to tax carers COVID bonus

GDP figures show need for more radical action from Government

Responding to the news that the economy is facing the worst recession in UK history, Acting Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey said:

Ministers must take immediate action to save jobs and livelihoods as the true economic impact of Covid-19 comes to light.

The Treasury must explain how it is going to stop mass redundancies when the furlough scheme wraps up. It

…

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Liz Jarvis

Let’s find our Kamala Harris

By Liz Jarvis | Wed 12th August 2020 - 4:30 pm

There’s a great quote from Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to the US Congress: “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring in a folding chair.” Maybe it was the combination of the heat and the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream sandwich I’d just eaten, but when the news broke last night that Kamala Harris has been selected to be Joe Biden’s running mate, I whooped and woo-hoo-ed. A lot. Only four women have ever been named by a major US party as a presidential or vice-presidential nominee, and none of them have been elected.

We are all acutely aware that this US election is one of the most significant of our lifetimes – a chance for America to reject the corrosive rhetoric of Trump and the appalling racism which his administration has helped to foster. There will be numerous attempts to undermine Kamala Harris, Fox News will throw everything at her; but I have no doubt she has the tenacity to weather any kind of storm. And representation matters.

For the Liberal Democrats, it’s the opportunity to look around and see what we can and should be doing differently, and that means making sure more diverse voices in the party are allowed to take centre stage.

I was really delighted that both of our Leadership Candidates have publicly committed to supporting the Rooney Rule, and hopefully this will ensure that there are Black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates in as many target seat selections as possible. Selections also still need to include female candidates – and if you don’t get why that’s important, when over 50% of our MPs are women, it’s worth noting that in the General Election, just 31% of our candidates were female.

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Ianto Stevens

Exam Results and Gradings

By Ianto Stevens | Wed 12th August 2020 - 3:00 pm

Students and teachers are often disappointed with some or all of their grades, and this will always be so. Don’t let us be consoled by this and dismiss the anxiety over grades as a temporary, COVID driven problem requiring only an immediate, pragmatic solution.

I was for several years in the early 2000s, a senior A level examiner. I set papers, wrote mark schemes and participated in grade reviews before grades were published.

I participated in meetings that manipulated mark schemes after students had completed papers but before they were marked – also in the meetings which manipulated grade boundaries after marking. These manipulations had four aims:

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Lib Dem Mum

Lib Dem Mum week 2 – When you can’t deliver leaflets

By Lib Dem Mum | Wed 12th August 2020 - 11:55 am

Dear Lib Dem Mum,

My local party is moderately successful (we have some councillors but not an MP) and I want to help out. There are some great people in my local party, both elected to public office and on the executive committee, and I really want to help further the cause of liberalism. However, the only thing they ever want me to do is deliver leaflets, and I am not physically capable of doing a delivery round due to mobility problems.

 What can I do to show them that I can be useful in other ways?

 Frustrated, Yorkshire

 

Dear Frustrated,

 If our party has a major flaw alongside all the minor ones that come with being a group of human beings, it’s that we can be more of a leaflet delivery cult than an actual political party. Yours is not the only local party that tends to view volunteers as leaflet dispersal machines. Happily, there are other things you can do: 

  • Within your local party:
    • Stand for the exec. In my experience, local party execs tend to be in need of people who can do things other than deliver leaflets. A good treasurer, for example, is worth their weight in gold, similarly a secretary who is actually good at taking the minutes of meetings.
    • Someone who is good with computers and can do the admin work to arrange leaflet deliveries for other people is often helpful. 
    • Volunteer to do phone banking.
    • Volunteer to proof read the leaflets so that they don’t go out filled with embarrassing typos.
    • Start, or take over an existing, policy working group and work on policies to put forward to regional or federal conference.
  • Within your state and/or region, there is almost certainly a need for people to do all the things that you can do for a local party, but on a larger scale. You can also volunteer to be someone who scouts locations for meetings or conferences for accessibility: that’s not needed on a very regular basis, but it sounds like you would be the person to do it.
  • Within the many internal party organisations (Young Liberals, Lib Dem Immigrants, LGBT+LDs, Lib Dem Friends of Cake, etc. – there are hundreds of these, and there’s sure to be one that meets your interests, the party has a directory of them here), or for the party nationally, there are lots of volunteer administrative roles and most of these are done remotely, from the volunteer’s home, as a matter of course, just because of the geographical distribution of members.
  • You can also stand for federal committees, and/or join Federal Policy Committee working groups, and/or train to become a candidate assessor or an adjudicator for disciplinary matters, and do myriad other things to help out on a national level.
  • At the moment, you can also volunteer to help out your favourite leadership contender. Volunteer to help Layla here or Ed here.
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Mark Valladares

Are the Liberal Democrats manageable?

By Mark Valladares | Wed 12th August 2020 - 9:20 am

Two weeks ago, I wrote a piece questioning a proposal for managing the Party through a Steering Group, pointing out that, based on what I had been led to understand, it appeared to duplicate existing bodies while adding another step between those in charge and those to whom they are accountable. Subsequently, there were reassurances given, which I think were reasonable.

But today, I have another question.

When the Liberal Democrats were formed, it was said that it was a merger of one Party whose motto was “never trust the members” with another whose motto was “never trust the leadership”. The problem is, that the two beliefs continue to run in parallel, and are reflected in how we run our Party today.

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Mark Valladares

11 August 2020 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Tue 11th August 2020 - 11:00 pm
  • Liberal Democrats call for independent equality assessment of Voter ID plan
  • Liberal Democrats: Government must halt use of facial recognition by police

Liberal Democrats call for independent equality assessment of Voter ID plan

The Liberal Democrats are calling for independent equality impact assessments into voter ID to protect “the legitimacy and integrity” of the UK electoral system as the Government looks to press ahead with voter ID legislation.

Citing evidence from around the world demonstrating that Voter ID makes it more difficult for people to vote, Liberal Democrat MPs are raising deep concerns that voter ID checks “will disproportionately impact ethnic minorities” at …

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Caron Lindsay

Donate your discount – help restaurants and raise money to tackle poverty

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 11th August 2020 - 5:55 pm

As restaurants are now open again, the Government is encouraging people to go to them with its Eat out to Help out scheme. You can get a 50% discount, up to the value of £10 from every participating restaurant.

Social Liberal Forum member Andy Galloway has come up with a brilliant idea which will not only help the restaurant but will also benefit Fareshare, a charity that distributes food to vulnerable people who need it.

The idea is that you donate your discount to the charity and show that you have done so on social media to encourage others to participate. From the Eat out and help out Crowdfunder page:

The ‘Eat Out To Help Out’ scheme is proving popular, but I think we can make it better.

Everyone loves a bargain, but if you don’t want the subsidy, why not #DonateYourDiscount?

Here’s how:

  • Enjoy a meal Mon-Wed and get 50% off at participating restaurants.
  • #DonateYourDiscount (or part of it) to FareShare through this page, or to any other charity of your choice.
  • Share your receipt and donation on Twitter/Instagram using #DonateYourDiscount and encourage others to do the same.
  • If you’re part of a charity, why not set up your own page and spread the movement raising money for your cause?

Why Fare Share?

In the UK, 14 million people are living in poverty – and the numbers are rising. During the last two weeks of March 2020, food bank usage more than doubled compared with the same period the year before and organisations continue to be under immense pressure to feed families across the country.

Fare Share do fantastic work all over the UK to fight hunger and food waste by redistributing food to frontline charities.

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Refugees are not our enemy – thoughts on Priti Patel’s remarks

By Clementine Leaver | Tue 11th August 2020 - 4:15 pm


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Around 4,000 migrants have crossed the channel from France in small boats this year. For context, 105,425 migrants crossed the Mediterranean sea to Southern European countries such as Italy and Greece last year. The overwhelming majority of refugees find sanctuary in the country neighbouring their own. Lebanon, Jordan, Pakistan, Turkey and Uganda are amongst the host countries for the majority of refugees.

Refugees are under no legal obligation to claim asylum in the first safe country they land in. All refugees have a legitimate claim to asylum in any safe country if they are still at risk of persecution in their country of origin. There are just no legal routes to seek refuge in the UK. Seeking asylum should not be a crime.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 46 Comments
Julliet Makhapila

A challenge to the leadership candidates

By Julliet Makhapila | Tue 11th August 2020 - 2:45 pm

Few people outside Liberal Democratic circles take any interest in our party leadership selection, yet this selection has the potential to be historically significant.

The right choice of candidate could lift the party into relevance again, thus allowing Britain’s proud liberal movement to live on in hope. The wrong candidate could kill us off completely.

As we reach the final rounds, we’ve witnessed the standard heated debates online, the bonding of two teams, occasional frustration spilling into rudeness, cries for civility, apologies, and even a few giggles. What we haven’t seen is anything that sparks the political imagination.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 16 Comments
Caron Lindsay

LibLink – Christine Jardine SNP’s policies on education have failed to make the grade

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 11th August 2020 - 12:55 pm

It’s been a hugely stressful week for thousands of Scottish teenagers and their parents.

They did not receive the results they were expecting for their HIgher exams after marks submitted by their teachers were downgraded by the Scottish Qualifications Authority. This has disproportionately affected pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. Willie Rennie supported pupil protests against the system used by the SQA.

Pupils who have worked hard for months have been marked down because of how previous students performed at their school. This is grossly unfair as it reinforces the inequity that has been growing for years.

The Education Secretary and the SQA were warned for months that their moderation process would damage the prospects of pupils for life. It’s no surprise that so many young people are out protesting. They feel as if their grades and their futures are being robbed by the SNP.

We can only hope that the appeals system is robust enough to deal with the tsunami of appeals heading its away. The funding and the resource for the appeals process must be increased to meet the considerable demand and the Scottish Government must ensure teachers have the time they need to fully support the many appeals that will be required.

Yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon apologised and today Education Secretary John Swinney faces a vote of no confidence in the Scottish Parliament.

But the problems in Scottish education go much deeper than this fiasco. Christine Jardine used her weekly Scotsman column to highlight how pupils leaving school this year have had their entire education under SNP Government – and the system is mired with problems with schools, colleges and universities.

International reports show Scottish education plummeting down the league tables which compare our schools with those abroad.

That proud boast that ours was the finest education in the world now seems empty, and out-dated.
Certainly for those at the chalk face it has long ceased to be the case, replaced by the reality that too many of our young people leave school functionally illiterate and the past few years have been to endure rather than enjoy.

Many of those who graduated from our universities this year are the same young people whose school years were disrupted by being the first to sit the new National 5 exams. Their teachers had to deliver a curriculum which was not only untried and untested but, by common consent, largely chaotic and stressful for all.

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged , , and | 2 Comments
Ben Andrew

Lib Dems: The party of wellbeing?

By Ben Andrew | Tue 11th August 2020 - 11:15 am

Lib Dem leadership elections often bring up the same criticisms of the party:

  1. People don’t know what we stand for.
  2. We aren’t radical enough.
  3. We need to advance a “core voter” strategy based on values, not just on being “hard working local people”.

I agree with all of these criticisms, but get weary when they are repeated ad infinitum without solutions. Both Davey and Moran talk about the importance of building a distinctive liberal message without saying what this distinctive liberal message should be. What I’m seeing from both candidates is a list of reasonable policy ideas which aren’t meaningfully linked (except by the vague claim that they are “liberal” or “evidenced-based”).

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 9 Comments
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