Mark Valladares

30 July 2020 – the overnight press release

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

Liberal Democrats: Tories’ appeasement of anti-immigration lobby will cause chaos

Responding to a report from Migration Watch criticising the Government’s planned “points-based” immigration system, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson Christine Jardine said:

This shows how short-sighted it is for the Conservatives to focus all their attention on appeasing the anti-immigration lobby who will always want more.

Groups like Migration Watch are still not happy, even though the Government’s new immigration system will be incredibly damaging to the NHS, social care and small businesses across the UK by excluding people with a valuable contribution to make.

Six months is nowhere near enough time for either

…

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Mark Valladares

29 July 2020 – today’s press release

By Mark Valladares | Wed 29th July 2020 - 11:30 pm

Government must act now on National Food Strategy recommendations

Responding to the National Food Strategy review suggesting that free school meals should be extended to every household receiving Universal Credit, Liberal Democrat Education spokesperson Layla Moran said:

The Government must waste no time in acting on these recommendations. We know that giving school children a hot, healthy meal at lunchtime greatly improves their health, behaviour and results.

The Liberal Democrats are proud to have introduced free school meals in government and have long been calling for them to be extended to more pupils.

We need to invest in giving every child the

…

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Steve Trevethan

The Death of Capitalism +?

By Steve Trevethan | Wed 29th July 2020 - 3:00 pm
The Corona crisis demands different and more in-depth analyses and syntheses.
Some causes of our poor management are society shortcomings – economic, democratic, educational and informational. These are failures of analytical thinking. Inextricably interconnected, they need addressing as a network.
Power correlates highly with wealth. The concentration of wealth concentrates power. Concentrated power weakens democracy. If we do not manage the continuing concentration of wealth, we connive at the demise of democracy. If we do not expose and oppose Neo-liberalism’s concentration of power, which gathers to itself yet more wealth and power, we are democrats in theory only.
Neo-Liberalism turns nations into financial capitalist entities instead of industrial capitalist ones. This is presented as “economics” but is also profoundly political power playing. “Off-shoring”, which moves manufacturing skills and corporate tax-paying abroad, affects the social equilibrium. It reduces the pay and infrastructures for the many. We become less productive, less skilled and more dependent consumer society and so less confident and powerful and more easily controlled and exploited.
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Greg Foster

Dispatch of Leadership Election Ballots

By Greg Foster | Wed 29th July 2020 - 11:30 am

Postal Votes

Postal votes have gone to print on the 27th July 2020. The initial run was around 5,000 voters. These will be sent to Royal Mail on the 29th July 2020.

We expect paper ballots to land between the 30th July and the 2nd August in the UK. We expect this to take up to the 14th August for non-UK postal ballots.

People who haven’t received a postal ballot by 2nd August can request a replacement by emailing [email protected]

Postal votes have been assigned based on the following criteria:

  • No email present on file
  • Has been requested by member
  • Has an @libdems.org.uk email address
  • Has a role-based email address (info@ contact@ etc)
  • Has a shared email address (ie 2 members using the same email)

In addition, any email addresses that cannot be uploaded to the email platform, or that hard bounce will be sent a postal vote in a second batch that will go to print on the 3rd August and we expect to arrive between the 6th and 11th August.

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Callum Robertson

How liberals should be responding to the Uyghur Muslim genocide

By Callum Robertson | Wed 29th July 2020 - 9:00 am

The United Kingdom has, for years, taking a flexible approach to the importance of human rights. On the one hand, the UK has taken an impressive stance on the Magnitsky sanctions against human rights abusers, on the other, we often act far too slowly or not at all when it comes to our allies or powerful countries.

We as a party have always stood tall in our defence of human rights. The treatment of the Uyghur Muslim community has been no exception, and the work of Alistair Carmichael, Maajid Nawaz and the Young Liberals should be applauded.

The work, however, cannot stop with hunger strikes, words and motions at a conference. This is even more pertinent when the Chinese Ambassador has the nerve to go on the Andrew Marr show and lie about the situation in Xinjiang.

This comes to the point of this article, which is about what we as a party can and should be doing about this crisis.

Firstly, we have over 50 councils up and down the UK where the Liberal Democrats are in power or a power-sharing agreement. Our councils should be volunteering to house Uyghur refugees. South Cambridgeshire had a similar programme with Syrian refugees.

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Mark Valladares

29 July 2020 – the overnight press releases

By Mark Valladares | Wed 29th July 2020 - 7:30 am
  • PAC report on social care demands lessons are learned
  • Government continues to ignore bad deal economic warning
  • Government must do more to get young people into work

PAC report on social care demands lessons are learned

Commenting on a Public Accounts Committee report which condemns the “slow, inconsistent and at times negligent approach” to the social care sector during the Covid-19 pandemic, Liberal Democrat MP and member of the committee Sarah Olney said:

The coronavirus has left people worried about their future and mourning loved ones. While we have relied on frontline staff to protect us, the Government’s PPE shortages seriously let NHS and care workers down.

People deserve better. Ministers must read and act on this report before it is too late to prepare for a second wave. That means rapidly upscaling the strategy to test, trace and isolate every case of coronavirus to keep people safe and prevent new surges.

To improve public confidence, the Prime Minister must set out a timetable for the independent inquiry into the Government’s actions. With that, we can ensure the same mistakes never happen again.

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Mark Valladares

28 July 2020 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Tue 28th July 2020 - 10:30 pm
  • Davey calls for PM to put Martin Forde QC in charge of a Coronavirus Inquiry
  • Davey: PM must take second wave risk seriously
  • Government gaps in support for freelancers leaving employers to pick up the tab
  • Government must apply same human rights standards to US when it comes to exports
  • Dodds: ‘Swansea Tidal Lagoon is a vital part of our post-Covid recovery’

    • Davey calls for PM to put Martin Forde QC in charge of a Coronavirus Inquiry

    Today Acting Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey has written to the Prime Minister with a plan for an immediate inquiry into the coronavirus pandemic.

    Ed has called on the Prime Minister to appoint Martin Forde QC as the chair of an independent coronavirus inquiry and to start work immediately. Martin Forde was the independent adviser on the design of the Government’s Windrush Compensation Scheme and is chair of the independent inquiry into Labour’s report on the party’s handling of antisemitism complaints.

    Ed also released proposed Terms of Reference for the independent inquiry agreed to by the Covid19 Bereaved Families for Justice.

    A spokesperson for the Covid19 Bereaved Families for Justice said:

    Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice are relieved that Ed Davey has seen the urgent need for a rapid inquiry.

    The Government’s own ‘Preparing for a challenging winter 20/21’ report (The Academy of Medical Sciences) predicts over 119,000 excess deaths this winter if urgent action is not taken now.

    That action has to be informed by this transparent inquiry. It’s time the Prime Minister put the well-being of the nation above politics.

    Acting Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey said:

    The Prime Minister confirmed to me weeks ago that there would be an independent inquiry, but we have seen no action from the Government since. Bereaved families I speak to are so disappointed that the Government is yet to begin an inquiry. They just don’t want any more families to go through what they have.

    The coronavirus threat remains very real. Were a second wave to happen during the winter, it could be even more deadly and damaging than the first. The Government must immediately start an inquiry so that we can learn from mistakes and properly plan for a second wave.

    This plan has been agreed by the Covid19 Bereaved Families for Justice. I hope Boris Johnson takes it seriously and sees it as an opportunity to get an inquiry going as soon as possible.

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Barry Turner

Why federalism over independence?

By Barry Turner | Tue 28th July 2020 - 5:08 pm

Lib Dems support the union because we believe there is strength in unity.

We support the principle that decisions should be made at the most appropriate local level giving power to the people. We aspire to achieving mutuality and respect between the home nations and between the regions. We see fundamental flaws in the current constitutional arrangements whereby there is little or no real devolution in England and different approaches to devolution where it does exist. There is no common approach or equality in the way that power is administered across …

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Will the next LibDem Leader have national ballot appeal?

By L M Sue-Too | Tue 28th July 2020 - 4:08 pm

Who are the Liberal Democrats? How far does their leader embody their party? In what way would their leader be a desirable UK Prime Minister?

As Liberal Democrats go to the polls to elect a leader these should be the questions members of the party have at the front and centre of their minds. These are the questions voters will ask. We need a leader who has manifold capacities to govern the country, providing sound leadership on a global stage into the next decade.

Many will not believe such a thing possible. Many unbelievers will be Liberal Democrats. But just think for …

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Christopher Stafford-Smith

Liberals and the cancel culture

By Christopher Stafford-Smith | Tue 28th July 2020 - 9:44 am

The sujet du jour; at least on Twitter, seems to be “cancel culture”.

I’m a newbie on Twitter and as I have scrolled through my feed and seen various threads; I’ve noticed a schism between Lib Dems, on this particular issue. On one side there are Lib Dems, advocating the necessity to protect the individual, human and civil rights of the oppressed and that freedom of speech doesn’t come with freedom from consequence. On the other side are those Lib Dems who see freedom of speech as a key tenet to liberalism. An article by Tim Farron (advocating the latter), exemplified this schism with Tim being supported and rounded on, in equal measure. However, this isn’t a divide about free speech – it is a divide in the discourse of what is morally absolute and what isn’t.

Within social justice, liberals will always seek a moral universalism when advocating human rights for the oppressed minorities. The danger is, this advocation can fall into absolutism and that those opposing the perceive moral truths by absolutists are not only wrong, they are immoral; leading to those opposing their worldview to be swiftly labelled “racists,” “bigots,” “Nazis,” etc. In a democratic society our cultural norms, ethics and morals, evolve over time through societal discourse. Absolutists, in shutting down what they perceive as immoral; shut down the debate. In effect, they break the social contract that allows for moral consensus to be agreed upon.

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Paul Walter

Register now for our first online conference!

By Paul Walter | Mon 27th July 2020 - 6:27 pm

Members are just receiving an invitation to register for the first Liberal Democrat online Autumn Conference, being held from 25th-28th September 2020.

The email from Geoff Payne, chair of the Conference Committee is as follows, minus my membership number (if you’ll forgive me!):

It’s official: Registration is now open for our first-ever online conference!

You’ll need your membership number.

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged | 2 Comments
Mark Valladares

Layla and Ed to meet with Compass

By Mark Valladares | Mon 27th July 2020 - 2:55 pm

I can’t say that I’m a huge fan of setpiece hustings – they tend to be a bit formulaic to my mind. And so, if you share that view, you might be interested to hear that Compass, who describe themselves as “a pressure group for the centre-left”, are holding an event on the Liberal Democrats’ leadership election with Ed and Layla (followed by a discussion with Jane Dodds and Jon Alexander) on 6 August, between 5.30 p.m. and 7 p.m.

The event is titled “The Future of the Liberal Democrats and Progressive Politics” and is open to everyone.

Here’s the link …

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Mark Valladares

How the Party is managed – can you be democratic and efficient?

By Mark Valladares | Mon 27th July 2020 - 11:05 am

As something of a governance geek, and a veteran Party bureaucrat, I tend to take an interest in how my Party is run and led. Policy is interesting yes, but you can tell a lot about any organisation by whether how it operates is in accordance with its declared values.

The “problem” with that is, if your values refer to democracy, transparency and accountability, you might not achieve optimal efficiency, if efficiency is defined as “getting things done”. It is a more pressing concern if you want to change things, and most, if not all, Party Presidents are elected on a mandate of changing things. The catch is that there are very few levers that a President can pull that actually do anything – they rely on people skills to persuade those who actually have operating authority to act as they wish them to.

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Posted in Op-eds, Party policy and internal matters and Party Presidency | Tagged , and | 19 Comments

Celebrating Shirley Williams’ contribution to British politics on her 90th birthday

By The Social Democrat Group | Mon 27th July 2020 - 8:45 am

To celebrate Shirley Williams’ 90th birthday, members of the Social Democrat Group executive have written four articles about her contribution to the party and to British politics. Below is a summary of each piece. To see the full pieces, follow the links.

George Kendall joined the SDP when it was formed in 1981 and has been a member of the SDP and the Lib Dems ever since. He is acting chair of the Social Democrat Group.

He writes that he was like many foot soldiers in the SDP in Shirley being his favourite politician. He loved her honesty and humanity in …

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Posted in Liberal History | Tagged | 21 Comments
The Voice

++ Breaking news: Siobhan Benita stands down as candidate for London Mayor

By The Voice | Mon 27th July 2020 - 8:13 am

With the London elections postponed until May 2021, members in the capital have today received an email from Siobhan Benita, the Lib Dem candidate for London Mayor.

She writes:

I am writing to let you know that, after much consideration and with sadness, I am standing down as the Liberal Democrat Candidate for Mayor of London.

The demands of being a candidate are significant, particularly for an election of this scale, The nature of the role, which is unpaid, makes it very difficult to combine with other work. Sadly, at this stage, I’m simply not able to commit to another full year of

…

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Mark Valladares

Forty-eight hours off Twitter for a good cause… #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate

By Mark Valladares | Mon 27th July 2020 - 8:00 am

Like many people, Liberal Democrat Voice will be maintaining a Twitter silence for forty-eight hours, starting at 9 a.m. this morning, to protest Twitter’s abject failure to address the issues surrounding anti-Jewish material posted seemingly without consequence.

We won’t be silent otherwise, so for the usual selection of news and opinion, do drop in from time to time, and we’ll aim to keep our readers engaged.

And, if you’re on Twitter, why not join us? The more participants, the more pressure on Twitter to act…

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The Voice

Layla and Ed: The Iain Dale interviews

By The Voice | Sun 26th July 2020 - 1:30 pm

Over the last couple of weeks, leadership candidates Ed Davey and Layla Moran have taken part in hour long interviews with LBC presenter Iain Dale.

He certainly put them through their paces. Compare and contrast both interviews here:

First up, Ed from 16th July

And Layla from 21st July

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Lynne Featherstone

Lynne Featherstone writes….Vote Layla!

By Lynne Featherstone | Sun 26th July 2020 - 11:30 am

I took over as Layla’s mentor when Vince had to stop because he became leader. I didn’t know her. I’d met her only once at a training weekend a few years earlier. We had lunch to introduce ourselves to each other. I came away from that very first meeting thinking here is someone who should be our leader.

I did my damndest to get her to run last time against Jo and Ed. Sadly (but possibly wisely) she resisted my pleading. She felt having been in Parliament a short time, and with a majority of just 800, she wasn’t ready. This time, with her majority increased to almost 9000; there was no holding her back. She is original, brave, intelligent, empathetic, and charismatic, and she will move us forward together.

Layla is liberal through and through and through. She wants every single person to fulfil their potential and have the security to live life as they choose. The words in our preamble: no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity, called to her as they did to me.

Her key priorities on education, the environment and the economy – Universal Basic Income and carbon negative (not just neutral!) targets and a teacher-led curriculum are how we move forward. Bold, liberal ideas, delivered with the right message and messenger will build our party and our country back better. You can read more about her plan for the party and vision for the country here.

With Layla, we can move on from the coalition voting record. We can rebuild trust and deliver positive and progressive change. Yes – we did some good things during the coalition. I was the originator and architect of the same-sex marriage law. But brilliant and liberal as that was – it’s not what people think of when the word coalition is brought up, and the coalition will be brought up in the many interviews our new leader will be grilled in. Being able to move the conversation forward from it is vital.

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Ed Davey

Ed Davey writes: Putting Liberalism at the heart of diversity and anti-racism

By Ed Davey | Sun 26th July 2020 - 9:30 am

Earlier this month, an open letter was published to both leadership candidates about race and diversity. I promised in the comments to publish a full response, because this is an issue that I take incredibly seriously. Our party’s record on diversity is poor – and when it comes to representation of Black and Asian communities it is unacceptable. It will be a central purpose of my leadership to sort this – working with people inside and outside our party. 

Two years ago, the Alderdice Review, set out the problem with great clarity – with clear recommendations for sorting the problem. Yet the Thornhill Review of the 2019 General Election rightly concludes progress has been glacially slow. This work now needs to be super-charged. 

It does require leadership from the top – the top of every level in our party. 

Take my constituency of Kingston and Surbiton. It is the most diverse of any constituency we currently hold in Parliament. And after 20 years of working with our large Tamil, Korean, Pakistani and Gujarati  populations, we now have one of the most diverse party memberships in the country and 8 out of our 38 councillors have BAME backgrounds. 

And while I know we still have much more to do, I do think my experience leading this local effort will be useful in the nationwide effort we must now urgently engage in. 

The key to our success in Kingston has been hard work – going out to listen and engage with every community in our area. I personally visit our mosques, Hindu temples and churches very regularly – indeed, for our Sikh community, I even helped them establish Kingston’s first gurdwara. And I’m a regular at the schools many of our diverse communities hold every Saturday to teach different languages and cultures – from Urdu to Arabic, Korean to Tamil. 

It’s this reach out I would lead and would ask every local party to lead. As a party, we have to do better than simply stand with our arms open and then hope people will come to us.

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The Liberator Collective

Last print issue of Liberator now free online

By The Liberator Collective | Sun 26th July 2020 - 8:35 am

Liberator 402 is on its way to subscribers and is available as a free download from our website: www.liberatormagazine.org.uk 
This is our last issue in print, and future Liberators will be free downloads from the website, which also has a free archive of copies back to 2001.

In future anyone – not just subscribers – can download and read Liberator on any device they wish, print out parts of it and pass it on to anyone interested.

We will send out email notifications when each PDF issue comes out. To be on this list please visit our website to sign up or email us at: [email protected]

Liberator 402 includes:

The Next Leader Speaks

Ed Davey and Layla Moran answer Liberator’s questions on how they would approach being Lib Dem leader

Beads Without String

Hardly anyone knows what holds Liberal Democrat policies together and the party bores and baffles the public. Michael Meadowcroft suggests some solutions

Staring us in the Face

Responses are needed to everything from a pandemic-induced recession to Black Lives Matter, and a look at Liberal history will reveal many of them, says Trevor Smith

Getting the Builders In

Susan Simmonds finds much to think about in Layla Moran’s Build Back Better booklet

Liberal Lessons About a Painful Past

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The Voice

Stephen Williams selected to fight West of England mayoral election

By The Voice | Sat 25th July 2020 - 11:30 am

Great news from the West of England. Former MP for Bristol West Stephen Williams will be the Liberal Democrats candidate for mayor of the West of England Combined Authority:

The election takes place in May 2021.

His selection was covered in Bristol Live

In a statement announcing his bid, he said: “This election really matters to people’s everyday lives because the mayor decides where a lot of money is spent to improve buses, cycling and other ways to get around, new housing and creating new jobs.

“I know our area well because before I went into politics I had jobs in all three parts of the West of England.”

He added: “Many residents won’t know much about the current mayor because he is completely invisible.

“I’m completely different because I love meeting local people, listening to them and then getting on with delivering what they need.

“I have a strong record of local action and know how to get results.”

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The Voice

Where to see Ed and Layla this weekend

By The Voice | Sat 25th July 2020 - 9:27 am

It’s the last weekend in the leadership election before the ballot papers go out. Already there has been a good mix of regional and themed hustings to put the two candidates, Layla Moran and Ed Davey, through their paces.

There are five opportunities to see them in action over the next two days.

First up, the London hustings between 3 and 4:30 this afternoon.

Tonight, between 7 and 8:30, it’s the Welsh event and tomorrow the Scottish hustings take place between 2 and 3:30 pm.

What these three areas have in common is that they all have mayoral, Parliament or Senedd elections next May so it’s a chance to see how well the candidates understand the political environments in those very different parts of the UK.

The final hustings of the weekend, the North East, takes place tomorrow evening between 7 and 8:30 pm.

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Mark Valladares

24 July 2020 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Fri 24th July 2020 - 11:55 pm
  • Drop in overseas visitors points to support need for tourism
  • Care sector is facing a new crisis as we emerge from lockdown – Davey
  • Scrap costly Police & Crime Commissioners
  • PM’s refusal to learn lessons shows why immediate inquiry is essential

Drop in overseas visitors points to support need for tourism

Liberal Democrat MP Tim Farron has called for more support to help the tourism sector as ONS statistics published today revealing there were 1.4 million visits to the UK by overseas visitors in March 2020, 54% fewer than in March 2019.

The Party has previously pushed for a review into the impact of coronavirus on the sector, to take into account options such as an extension of the furlough, grants and loans schemes until 2021.

Liberal Democrat MP Tim Farron said:

Countless businesses are facing serious financial hardship and many more are worried about job losses, particularly across the tourism sector.

With half the usual footfall from flights in March, which we know has been worse since, Ministers must see this as a reminder that the tourism industry must be given the tools it needs to recover.

That is why Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to extend furlough support until it is safe and create and enhance bespoke packages for sectors like hospitality, leisure and culture.

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Audrey Eager

In memory of Ireland’s favourite Englishman – Jack Charlton

By Audrey Eager | Fri 24th July 2020 - 3:31 pm

Embed from Getty Images

Ireland’s favourite Englishman, Jack Charlton, was buried this week and if it wasn’t for Covid, a state funeral would no doubt have been planned for him in Ireland.

The news broke on Saturday, July 11th of his passing followed by an outpouring of emotions. Big Jack wasn’t just a football manager. He took us on an adventure. He helped create a more confident Ireland. Robert Emmett said during his trial for the failed 1803 Rebellion ‘When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then and not till then, let my epitaph be written.’ It was Jack who took us to our place among nations.

We need to go back in time to remember what Anglo-Irish relations were like back in the 1980s. Big Jack took on the Irish job in 1986. He had played on the 1966 winning English team but didn’t receive the same accolades as others did. He dedicated himself to a long career with Leeds United before managing Newcastle United. He applied for the English job and publicly spoke of his anger of being ignored by the FA.

There was skepticism of his appointment at first. The Troubles were at their height, England still considered the ‘Old Enemy’. He took Ireland to her first major tournament in 1988 beating an overly confident England one-nil. It was a watershed moment.

Then came Italia ‘90. Ireland made it to the quarter-finals. What can be said about Italia ‘90 that doesn’t leave Irish eyes smiling. It was a golden age of Irish football. A confident Ireland was emerging. Italia ‘90 kick started it followed by the annual Eurovision from Ireland, Riverdance and the Celtic Tiger. Being Irish was cool!

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Posted in Obituaries | Tagged | 4 Comments
Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Taiwan

By Tom Arms | Fri 24th July 2020 - 12:27 pm

Embed from Getty Images

Forget about Hong Kong. The ex-British colony is a consolation prize for Beijing compared to the 23.6 million souls on Taiwan, or, to give it its claimed name, the Republic of China.

The Taiwanese have kept an eagle eye on political events in Hong Kong since before the 1997 handover. From the start they were sceptical about the Beijing’s talk of “two systems in one country” and pledges of peaceful reunification. Recent events in Hong Kong have confirmed their scepticism and is threatening to ignite a 71-year-old Asian powder keg which could all too easily lead to a Sino-American showdown.

The dispute dates back to 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek, leader of China’s Kuomintang government, fled across the Taiwan Straits a few months before Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist Party declared victory in the long-running Chinese Civil War. He took with him China’s gold reserves, American-backing, a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and a totally unrealistic claim to rule the 3.7 billion square miles of Mainland China from an offshore island of 13,980 square miles.

It couldn’t last. And it didn’t. In 1971 Taiwan lost its seat on the Security Council and the UN. In 1979 the US caved into the pressures of realpolitik and extended diplomatic recognition to Beijing. It maintained a de-facto embassy in the Taiwanese capital Taipei and pledged itself to the continued defense of the island, but in the eyes of Beijing and the rest of the world it was the de jure recognition that counted. Today there are only 15 countries (including the Vatican) that have diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

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John Waddell

The Scottish constitutional question

By John Waddell | Fri 24th July 2020 - 9:18 am

Embed from Getty Images

The constitutional question has dominated Scottish Politics for years and shows little sign of going away. It’s something the Liberal Democrats should have total strength on – we have been interested in where power does and should lie for decades. Decentralisation in a system of cross-national cooperative government is in our DNA.

However, this period of constitutional obsession and wrangling has done little to support our party. Many across the UK may feel a similar sense of exhaustion talking about Brexit that we feel in Scotland about independence, except we have been doing it for nearly 10 years, not just the last 4.

It is for this reason that many in the Scottish Liberal Democrats feel tired and done with talking about the SNP, wishing that we would take a different stance to our pro-UK position. This often comes with the accusation that we risk looking like Tory-lite and we must talk about federalism as an alternative – a proposal that no Liberal Democrat I have ever met disagrees with. However, we also run the risk then of looking to be insufficiently pro-UK, or that we have qualifications to our support of the UK, which is unacceptable to the majority of our base or floating voters and risks alienating us from the Scottish electorate even further. 5 MSPs and 4 MPs are better than none.

However, both of these suggestions miss the point. Brexit and Scottish Independence are symptoms of a much larger problem. Those that would vote for these, come what may, are far from the majority of the Scottish or UK population. Focusing on the constitutional wrangling of the UK does not address that so many people vote for these because they feel they have nothing to lose, in an economic system of stagnant wages, few opportunities, an ageing working population lowering the promotional opportunities for them to advance. A housing market has allowed house prices and rents to rise for the majority of property owners, but priced out the young and low income earners from saving and buying a home of their own.

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Mark Valladares

23 July 2020 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Thu 23rd July 2020 - 11:15 pm
  • Liberal Democrats: Govt must stop posturing and secure a good deal
  • Liberal Democrats attempt to block renter evictions
  • Any review of our democracy must be truly independent, Liberal Democrats warn

Liberal Democrats: Govt must stop posturing and secure a good deal

Responding to Barnier’s comments that there has been no progress on key Brexit issues including fisheries and state aid, Liberal Democrat Brexit Spokesperson Alistair Carmichael said:

With just weeks to go and our country already facing the biggest economic crisis in generations, it is unthinkable that the UK would crash out of the transition period without a deal in place or with a bad

…

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Becky Forrest

Unconscious bias in the party

By Becky Forrest | Thu 23rd July 2020 - 5:48 pm

As an evidence based party we are more than aware that minority groups may be discriminated against, both unconsciously and unintentionally. This is one of the reasons the party runs unconscious bias training.

As human beings we are picking up social cues all the time and they inform our judgement, whether we realise it or not. As was demonstrated in the orchestra research, blind auditions were not enough when auditory cues, such as the distinctive tap of heels on a hard floor, were still present. But in removing both audio and visual cues to judge purely on merit, this has contributed to the increased hiring of female musicians.

I recently asked for the gender split of our most recent unconscious bias training. It was approximately 50:50. Sounds great doesn’t it! Except not particularly when you think about our current gender split in terms of membership. 

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Torrin Wilkins

Centre interviews the Liberal Democrat leadership contenders (Part 2: Ed Davey)

By Torrin Wilkins | Thu 23rd July 2020 - 3:00 pm


In this podcast we covered a huge amount. It included academic selection at the age of 11, Academies, Brexit, electric cars, UBI and lots more. Below I have looked at some of the areas in the discussion that I found particularly of interest. You can listen to the full podcast here.

The first thing was selection at the age of 11 which has created grammar schools, secondary moderns and in some cases technical colleges. In this we debated at length about the system and its issues with the low proportion of SEN and disabled students in these schools. We also discussed how it could be fixed with Ed suggesting ideas such as grants and including this as an element of Ofsted reports. Whilst this is a step in the right direction I am very much of the opinion, as I said in the podcast, that selection should be scraped as I don’t see any way to actually get around this issue. However, I was very happy that Ed was open to reviewing the issue in the future, not least as we have a paper coming out on this issue in a few months.

The second area I found interesting in our discussion was, of course. Brexit. As I mention in the podcast, this is the second time I have debated with Ed on this issue, the other time being the Victoria Derbyshire debate between Ed and Jo. Once again Ed showed he was passionate on the issue of Brexit but had moved towards accepting of a softer Brexit for the time being. However, I was a little worried at the mentions of a “Norway +” or a “Norway +++” model, something not really possible as it would require trying to simultaneously apply EFTA and EU free trade deals. I do still have some worries that if we are to sell a coherent policy on the EU to the public, it needs to be thoroughly researched first.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 12 Comments
Tom Brake

From Russia with Loathing

By Tom Brake | Thu 23rd July 2020 - 12:30 pm

I got my first taste of Russia and the other side of the Iron Curtain on a schoolboy visit to Moscow and Odessa in 1976. Brezhnev was the Soviet Leader and the Soviet Union was in the middle of a hot Cold War with the West.

The contrast between East and West could not have been greater.

In Russia, apart from in the hard currency shops, consumer goods were in noticeably short supply, as was anything edible except for seasonal produce. The efforts of shadowy black marketeers, who descended on our group at every touristic stopover, whispering ‘buy jeans, dollars, chewing gum’ would have done little to plug the supply shortages.

In hotels, we were under constant surveillance, with a babushka sitting at a desk, at the end of every corridor. The promised day with a Russian family, the much-anticipated highlight of our trip, was cancelled without explanation.

It was only on a visit to a secondary school that we detected some common experiences shared with our Russian peers – an interest in heavy metal bands Led Zeppelin, Motorhead and Van Halen, and scruffy torn denims.

Returning to Moscow last year, over forty years later, jeans were available in all sizes and price ranges, chewing gum could be purchased in every flavour imaginable and the supermarkets were bulging with produce flown in from around the world.

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