Caron Lindsay

You’ll want to get to Sheffield this weekend….

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 8th August 2019 - 8:55 am

Absolutely nobody would grudge Jane Dodds, our newly elected MP for Brecon and Radnorshire a weekend off.

After all, she has just been through a gruelling by-election campaign.

When I was down there three weeks ago, she had a very strong sense that people were coming to help her and she needed to return that favour.

Nobody expected her to be doing it quite so soon, though.

Since the Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam said he was stepping down in September, Laura has been stepping up her campaign activity.

https://twitter.com/LibDemLaura/status/1157925080300736512?s=20

Jane is repaying the huge effort Sheffield put in to her win. Laura went to Brecon several times as did local party chair John Dryden to whom I am eternally grateful for the lift back from the Lib Dem Pint in Brecon. I wouldn’t have been able to go otherwise.

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Caron Lindsay

Remembering a wonderful, zero-hoots giving, wise Liberal

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 7th August 2019 - 10:22 pm

Alex Wilcock has put up a marvellous thread on Twitter tonight marking 106 years since Baroness Nancy Seear’s birth.

I was lucky enough to hear her forthright views in person at a couple of conferences back in the 1990s and I remember how sad I was when she died in the middle of the General Election campaign in 1997. Her lifetime of putting all she had into advancing the liberal cause and she never saw our big breakthrough.

Read the whole thread:

There are some brilliant stories – her take-down of Paddy at a Federal Policy Committee meeting when he was leader – and her vigorous defence of him when he needed it.

i always really admired her. She said what she thought in the most direct way imaginable.

You can see the BBC News report of her death from around 19:15 here.

Her obituary from the Independent by fellow peer Geoff Tordoff is here. 

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Ben Wōden

Is there a scientific basis for the sugar levy?

By Ben Wōden | Wed 7th August 2019 - 5:15 pm

Discussion of the sugar levy has focused on effectiveness and moral/political hazards. I want to focus on one problem that makes those redundant: Does it make scientific sense?

Not obviously.

A popular narrative: In the past, we thought obese people were that way because they lacked willpower and ate too much food, particularly fat, which obviously made you “fat” – it’s called fat! Then, scientists who had previously been silenced by the nutrition science establishment (which was in Big Sugar’s pocket) bravely spoke up and educated us on the Science!™, and now we know that it’s sugar, not fat, that makes you obese.

Reality is more complicated.

The supposedly debunked “fat = evil” paradigm was never a scientific consensus, but merely a pop-science one. It was less the work of the nutrition scientists than of sugar companies and the makers of low-fat diet products. The supposedly triumphant “sugar = evil” paradigm also has little support amongst nutrition scientists. At best, they are marginally more concerned with the impact of sugar on health than they were 50 years ago, and marginally less concerned about fat.

It isn’t hard to blow the simplistic anti-sugar position out of the water. This graph does it impressively, and should make everyone update their beliefs significantly away from thinking that sugar is a major cause of obesity, and should absolutely torpedo the simplistic “sugar = evil” position that has taken hold in many parts of the population and, seemingly, in government.

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Nick Rider

The best way to answer Coalition guilt-shaming is to challenge austerity and poverty today, head-on

By Nick Rider | Wed 7th August 2019 - 1:30 pm

The election of a new Liberal Democrat leader has been followed by a predictable burst of accusations and guilt-shaming – mostly, but not only, from Labour sources – regarding the Lib Dems’ part in the Coalition, cuts and austerity. Responses on Liberal Democrat Voice and in other Lib Dem groups have often followed a familiar pattern too. A fair amount of irritated defensiveness. A lot of detailed discussion of the financial situation in 2010, deficit levels, etc. Sometimes a feel of this being a rather theoretical economic argument a bit far away, only raised to torment us.

I think this is to miss the point. The best way to get over endless guilt-shaming and raking-over of the Coalition is not to get sucked into circular arguments over just what part any Lib Dem minister played in this or that decision in 2014 but to say very clearly we’ve moved on, there are urgent matters to be dealt with, and that today, in the here and now, 2019, the Liberal Democrats see poverty as a real crisis, care about it and are prepared to tackle it.

What doesn’t leap out from current Lib Dem responses is any sense of urgency. An urgent awareness that there is an atrocious crisis of poverty in this country, and it’s getting worse. Galloping homelessness, thousands dependent on food banks, more and more people in work but so poorly paid and so insecure they barely keep going. Public health indicators that had been improving for decades now stalled or going backwards, as the United Nations’ Alston Report on Poverty in the UK highlighted.

And behind this worsening poverty are some very old ideas, like the assumption that anyone in need of support is potentially a ‘scrounger’ culpable for their own poverty who needs to be kept in check through such things as the benefit sanctions regime.

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Rupinder Singh

Tory “Wafflenomics” and the Expected Macroeconomic-fiscal Costs of NO DEAL

By Rupinder Singh | Wed 7th August 2019 - 12:30 pm

In my last piece, I outlined the expected consequences of a depreciating pound and that a looser fiscal response was the only feasible short-term policy response that would be available to deal with the massive macroeconomic shocks that are likely to ensue (an uncoordinated) NO DEAL Brexit.

Three and a half questions follow:

  • What is the Boris math for the litany of fiscal promises issuing since his “inauguration”?
  • Are these spending promises feasible & credible in terms of the macro-fiscal context the UK will face in a NO DEAL scenario?
  • What should our response as LibDems be to unpick if not defenestrate the Tory Wafflenomics in the run-up to October 31st? The half-question I leave for another occasion, what should be our policy response to deal with the after-effects from November 1 should a No Deal actually take place.

Math on Boris’ Fiscal Promises and projected values

(…mind you we’re just a few weeks in..)

  • 20,000 new police officers: £1bn (one-off)
  • Rise in 40% tax threshold from £50k to £80k: £10bn
  • National Insurance contributions at higher trigger: £11bn
  • Schools: reversing cuts in Education envelope: £5bn
  • Health: Unclear but: 20 New hospitals £1.8bn + wooing female voters £2bn + ??promised £350m per week: £3.8bn – £20bn
  • social care: £10bn
  • new railway Manchester – Leeds: £2.1 – £3.6bn depending on sources, assume £3bn
  • Help to farmers: £0.5bn (but is this just for the Welsh lamb?)
  • No-Deal Planning: £2.1bn (let’s assume £100m no-deal advertising part of this budget line)
  • Unbudgeted thus far: other sectors e.g. Fisheries, medicines, food shortages, …you get the picture…cost of increased policing…

Totting these figures gives £42bn excluding the £350m/week which alone would imply a further £18bn…and per year if the red bus promise is to be kept strictly. Large numbers in absolute terms (a billion has nine zeros) but not in relative terms as the UK economy is £2 trn in value (a trillion has 12 zeros), meaning that £42bn equates to around 2% of GDP or 5% of the current budget and therefore chunky but not a huge fiscal expansion…of itself..

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Graham Colley

Joyce Arram 1935-2018: Piecing together a Jigsaw of a Life devoted to Liberalism

By Graham Colley | Wed 7th August 2019 - 10:30 am

Many will already have heard of the passing of Joyce Arram on 11 November 2018.

Joyce was the Deputy President of Lib Dem Lawyers. I had known Joyce since my days as the membership secretary of Liberal Lawyers in the early 1980s, when Bernard Budd QC was the Chair and Tim Clement Jones the organising secretary. Joyce subsequently became secretary of the Association for many years and was a lifelong Liberal.

Her devotion to the Liberal Party was shown by the many times she was a local government and parliamentary candidate as well as an attender at every party conference, where she would could invariably be found on the LibDem lawyers stand in the exhibition area.

Joyce is remembered as being part of seven female Liberal Candidates (the others were Christina Baron, Sarah Curtis, Penny Jessel, Margaret Snow, Delia Venables and Nesta Wyn Ellis) who protested in 1976 outside the National Liberal Club about the fact that women were not until then admitted to full membership following the passing of the Sex Discrimination Act.

Her commitment to Liberal Democrat friends of Israel was shown in an obituary prepared by Lord (Monroe) Palmer LibDem.
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At the age of six, Joyce was evacuated to Wales during World War II and was devoted to her cottage in Carmarthenshire. Although from London, Joyce was always very supportive of Welsh culture, giving readings at the National Liberal club St David’s Day dinners. Joyce was a regular attender of the annual Lloyd George Society weekends in Llandrindod Wells. The Lord George society are holding a Joyce Arram Memorial lecture at the National Liberal Club on Monday, 25 November 2019 at 7 PM to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Treaty of Versailles, to consider the role played by David Lloyd George at the Paris Peace Conference and the consequences of the treaties. The speaker will be critical historian Alistair Cooke OBE, (Baron Lexden), and will be chaired by Baroness Sarah Ludford.

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Tony Lloyd

Bar Charts!

By Tony Lloyd | Wed 7th August 2019 - 9:00 am

I’ve had an idea about bar charts! It’s way outside my area of expertise, but indulge me.

Right, Northern Ireland has a unique set of parties and in Scotland and Wales the national parties have disrupted the ability of the LabCon duopoly to “game” First Past the Post. In England, though, LabCon game First Past the Post for all its worth. They do everything they can to maintain a dichotomy, “them or us”. Then they run a “project fear” on “them”.

Our campaigning tasks are to avoid being “them” and be an independent, viable, option.

I have previously suggested that we can avoid  being “them” by criticising neither duopoly party individually but only the duopoly as an unified entity.

As for establishing ourselves as real contenders, nationally this is going well.

Locally, though, I can see problems with the bar charts we use to make the case that we are a winning bet. Here we too often play exactly that “us and them” dichotomy that hurts us so much nationally. Nationally we need people to abandon voting for the least-worst-possible winner. Locally, though it’s all “only we can…” and “can’t win here”; straight out of the duopoly playbook. And all too often we dishonestly distort data to present the “story” we want to tell.

Now, after the elections for the European Parliament we have no need to distort as there is always some data that, fairly presented, will tell the story that we are in the race. In a constituency where we came second in 2017, that data can be presented. In my constituency, Lewisham and Deptford, we didn’t do so well in 2017 (to say the least). In the EU elections, though, we came first in Lewisham borough! That data can be used. In some areas of London we came third. Coming first in the region as a whole, though, allows that data to be used. What of a constituency where we did badly, in an electoral area where we did badly and a region where we didn’t do so well? The UK wide EU results put us in second place: those results will tell the story.

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Jane Reed

Assumptions

By Jane Reed | Tue 6th August 2019 - 1:30 pm

I offer York Liberal Democrats, about every two months, 2 hour sessions on Meditating for Social Action. At these sessions, through meditation, silent reflection, group discussion, we explore a particular theme, such as intentions and effective listening, mostly using a reading. Participants have found the sessions really helpful very much enhancing their Lib Dem activity. By taking time to deeply consider such a theme and discussing it in the group, participants’ motivation to add this good practice to their political activity is very positively affected. For example the person organising our Executive Meeting found he was keener and more focused in getting all the preparation done and had a greater sense of purpose. 

Recently we considered Making Assumptions.

Making assumptions especially when we are in a novel situation is natural and can serve safety issues. For example I might be walking home in the dark along a road without many other people about and I find a drunk person is approaching me. I then might just as a precaution casually cross the road.

However assumptions, that the person then believes and takes action on, are often the root of prejudice, stereotyping and exclusion.

To avoid these negative effects when for example we meet a stranger, perhaps a new Libdem member or a constituent when campaigning, we need to be aware of the immediate assumptions that we form, we all do this, but not to form thoughts and believes around them but be prepared to find out more about the person, find out factual information, which you will be able to do if you take a genuine interest in them, even if it is only for a short time. In this way you are genuinely opening to who they actually are. I find having good eye contact greatly helps with this.

Years ago when I was in Leeds I was approached by a man dressed in an extreme punk outfit which initially for me was a bit frightening. However he was only asking the time and I found by giving good eye contact all my reservations went as in doing this I could see that he came across as rather insecure and shy. Most people find it difficult to lie when giving a gaze. I have recently discovered Politicians use eye contact a lot to exchange information presumably for this reason. However some people will probably be able to blank out and not give much information.

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#GirlsSupportingGirls

By Ruth McElroy | Tue 6th August 2019 - 11:55 am

When I first took charge of Scottish Liberal Democrat Women earlier this year, my mission was simple: I was going to save the women.

In Scotland, we are fortunate to have the brilliant MPs Jo Swinson and Christine Jardine, but the proportion of women elected at all levels simply isn’t good enough. We are running an almighty campaign to get the brilliant Beatrice Wishart in the Scottish Parliamentary by-election in Shetland later this month but even when we get her elected, she will be the only one of 5 Lib Dem MSPs who is a woman. Luckily, our elected men couldn’t be better allies – I have personally witnessed Willie Rennie putting in real effort to push through new rules on all women shortlists, and encouraging many women to consider their futures with the party.

As to how to save the women, this was the subject of many a conversation amongst my network of Lib Dem Ladies, a WhatsApp group which has become somewhat infamous at Scottish conferences full of women who inspire me every day. There are a few more ideas in the pipeline but the one we’ve been working hard on for the last few months is #GirlsSupportingGirls.

We know that there are many, many women in our party who would make brilliant MPs, MSPs and local councillors, and we want to make sure that they achieve their goals. That is why for the last few months, we’ve been gathering SLDW members and sending them to support female candidates of all sorts. We started with the brilliant Jenny Marr, PPC for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, and have been travelling across the UK since, even road tripping to Brecon and Radnorshire to help out our brand new MP Jane Dodds. 

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Simon McGrath

Time to ditch the People’s Vote organisation – but not a People’s Vote

By Simon McGrath | Tue 6th August 2019 - 10:25 am

Many Liberal Democrat candidates at the next election are going to be surprised  to  find that the People’s Vote campaign will be recommending voting for their Labour opponents – and sending activists to back  that on the ground. 

Liberal Democrats have generally been very supportive of the campaign  which is supporting  our core policy on Brexit and have been happy to promulgate its messages , help at its events and donate money to it. All of that has helped give it credibility – but that credibility may now be used against us. 

According to leaked documents in the Guardian and  the Sunday Times (£) the People’s Vote Campaign are going to be recommending that Lib Dem and Green voters in some constituencies  vote Labour. According to the  leaked document, James McGrory, Director of the People’s Vote organisation says (my emboldening):

In some cases we will be asking Labour supporters to vote for other parties such as the Liberal Democrats. In many others we will be asking supporters of the Liberal Democrats, the Greens or others to vote Labour.

We can expect Labour candidates who are endorsed by the People’s Vote campaign to be using this endorsement to squeeze our vote. 

This is madness – Labour is a pro Brexit party and Corbyn has made  it clear time and again that  what he wants is a Labour Brexit

Anyone elected as a Labour MP will be voting to put life long Brexit supporter Jeremy Corbyn in charge of the negotiations. 

The People’s Vote campaign have a track record on this – they pressured Femi Oluwole to drop out of the Peterborough by election for fear it would  harm the Labour vote.

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Andy Daer

A trip to Palestine

By Andy Daer | Tue 6th August 2019 - 8:57 am

The racial profiling had gone a bit wrong.  We’d been walking along al Shuhada, a street in Hebron which is strictly off-limits for Palestinians, flanked by some nervous-looking Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldiers, when one of them demanded to see some ID.  He’d picked one our small group of British Lib Dems who was obviously of Indian origin.  Our Israeli guide, ex-IDF himself, gently reminded the young soldier that as ‘internationals’ we had rights not granted to Palestinians.

Our trip to Palestine earlier this year lasted only six days, but as well as Hebron, we visited Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, some outlying villages and towns, a Bedouin settlement threatened with demolition (but still there today), and a refugee camp for internally displaced people.  You can’t learn everything about a country in such a short time, but whatever you read or see in the media, there is no substitute for being there and meeting the people.  We were warmly received by the Palestinians we met – unsurprisingly, given that our (Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine) stated aim is to campaign for the rights of Palestinians, although it is maybe just a little surprising when you consider the past role of the British, exemplified by the Balfour Declaration in 1917, and our hasty departure from Palestine in 1948.

The context for our journey was provided on day one, at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).  As well as working to improve the lot of the Palestinians, they collect data on casualty numbers on both sides of the ongoing conflict, and they showed us on a series of maps the steady decrease in the land occupied by Palestinians, due to the illegal (under international law) settlements in the ‘Occupied Territories’.  

The West Bank and Gaza were overrun by the IDF in a brief war more than fifty years ago, but are still subject to martial law.  We visited Military Court Watch, which independently monitors court proceedings when the accused are young Palestinians (under 18).  Typically, the charge is throwing stones at settlers, for which the penalty is usually several months in prison.  Around 200 children were in Israeli prisons when we were there; military courts operate differently from civil courts, and although evidence is not always available, the conviction rate is 99%. 

Sometimes our guides were Israeli Jews who were out of step with the current right-wing Israeli government, and they and their Palestinian counterparts impressed us with their calm determination to see their land freed from conflict.  One thing they all stressed was the effectiveness of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign.  The views and support of the outside world really matter.

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The Voice

Government forced to publish data showing less than 3 in 10 UK exporters are prepared for ‘no deal’ Brexit

By The Voice | Mon 5th August 2019 - 1:45 pm

New data obtained by the Liberal Democrats from HM Treasury shows less than 3 in 10 exporters to the EU are ready for a ‘no deal’ Brexit. Figures suggest most will not be ready until the beginning of 2021.

In a no-deal Brexit, businesses that currently only trade with EU countries will need to apply for an Economic Operator Registration and Identification (EORI) number to trade goods into and out of the UK. HMRC uses this number to identify the business and collect duty on their goods.

Various business lobbying organisations have been warning for months of a serious lack of …

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Richard Taylor

Tactical voting and the Brecon by-election

By Richard Taylor | Mon 5th August 2019 - 11:12 am

How did we win the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election? To state the obvious, people changed their vote between 2017 and 2019. Contrary to most of the comment in the press from both Tories and Liberal Democrats, the main reason we won was not because of a remain alliance. The numbers are very clear. We gained 14.3% of the vote between 2017 and 2019.

Where did those votes come from? They certainly didn’t come from the Conservatives. The vote for the ‘pro-Brexit’ parties (CON, BREX and UKIP) stayed remarkably stable: they took exactly 50% of the vote in 2017 and 50.3% …

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Paul Reynolds

Ten freeports by Spring; Boris’s post-Brexit economic miracle

By Paul Reynolds | Mon 5th August 2019 - 8:36 am

What should the Liberal Democrats do about Boris’s freeports idea? It is alleged that 85,000 jobs will be created.

What is a freeport?

It is a simple idea as old as customs duties themselves. Countries designate an area of land accessible in some way from outside their territory, as outwith their national boundaries for the purposes of customs, taxes and regulations. This means the freeport is a quasi-foreign territory free of all taxes and inspections, even though physically it is inside the host country.

The point is that goods or materials can come into the territory without paying any duties …

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Mark Valladares

3-4 August 2019 – the weekend’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Mon 5th August 2019 - 6:45 am

Police should reduce fear, not create terror

Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson Ed Davey has criticised Home Secretary Priti Patel as “out of touch” for her comments about the police making people “literally feel terror”.

Responding to Priti Patel’s interview with the Daily Mail, Ed Davey said:

The Liberal Democrats want many more police so they can catch criminals, prevent crime in the first place and work in our communities to help people feel safer – and it’s a shame Priti Patel didn’t back our campaign for more police these last four years.

Yet Priti Patel’s notion that making people terrified of the

…

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Hannah Bettsworth

Sugar Tax is nothing more than a money spinning effort

By Hannah Bettsworth | Sun 4th August 2019 - 3:45 pm

I’ve recently lost a substantial amount of weight. That’s not a humblebrag, it’s going to be relevant, I promise. It’s taken the best part of 20 years to find something that works for me, and I’ll come back to that later. How our society discusses diet and weight was mostly to blame for why it’s taken so long. When I was a teenager, I used to voraciously read women’s magazines while keeping out of the sun during the hottest hours of the day on holiday. Oh, the diet articles in some of those. It was awful. Everything was egg whites and Ryvita. Everything.

And then, imagine, you see something like those Cancer Research adverts. You’ve already seen in the media that a bland diet is something to aspire to, a good way to lose weight, and now you’re seeing that if you’re fat you’ll die. Can you blame a teenager for coming to the conclusion that living longer on miserable food isn’t actually that great a deal? Especially when cheese, chocolate, and chips exist. (Not together, although I did go there on a dare once.)

This is where the recent party proposals on food and drink taxation come in. So, imagine you’re a young adult now, and your understanding of diet is (still) that you can have nice food and be fat or have boring food and be thin. Is a tax going to change your mind about that? Or will you just spend more of your student bursary on that chocolate bar? It’s anecdotal, but that’s how people respond to ‘sin taxes’ more generally. Denmark had a fat tax, and gave up on a proposed sugar tax, because people literally preferred to go to shop in Germany than to pay it. Just process that, for a second: people actively chose to go and shop in a different currency to avoid the kind of tax our party is proposing a consultation on.

In reality, changing the way you eat can’t be done in the short term with nudge policies. Back to what worked for me. It was the concept behind the programme ‘Cook Yourself Thin’. You can eat whatever you like. You don’t have to cut out any food groups. You certainly don’t have own a cupboard full of Ryvita and live on steamed vegetables. What you can do is make lower-calorie substitutions for the things you love. The cookbook’s got a chocolate truffle recipe in it. It even recommends swapping a cookie for Jaffa cakes.

You have to do something which is sustainable for you. Otherwise you simply will not be able to keep it off. Most people put the weight they lose back on again. A sugar tax is nothing more than a money-spinning measure: if you have the spare cash, you’ll still buy it. It won’t make you successfully change the way you live. That’s far more personal and complex than most people like to think. 

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Paul Walter

Photo special: Celebrations at the Brecon & Radnorshire HQ

By Paul Walter | Sun 4th August 2019 - 1:36 pm

Jane Dodds celebrates victory with helpers at the Brecon campaign HQ in the early hours of Friday 2nd August

Many thanks to Callum Littlemore for letting us show some of his behind-the-scenes photos, from Friday morning, at the Brecon and Radnorshire campaign HQ in Brecon.

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Richard Kemp

Six key areas for a partnership approach to politics

By Richard Kemp | Sun 4th August 2019 - 9:53 am

Since I last wrote about a partnership parliament’ we have won the Brecon by-election and a lot of the talk, quite rightly, has been about the ‘Remain Alliance’ which helped to deliver victory to Jane Dodds. What the by-election has absolutely demonstrated is that politics has become so factionalised that there will not be a Parliament in which one Party will have an absolute majority after the next General Election.

If we are to have a ‘Partnership Parliament’ then perhaps, we ought to consider a partnership approach to the elections which will precede it. In many ways the one is clearly the precursor to another. So, I set out what I think are the key themes on which we should negotiate pre and post-election.

Note that I said themes here. People rarely vote for or against specific policies. They vote for or against beliefs and themes which express themselves by way of high-level principles which they can relate. They then conclude on those themes that such a Party or such a person is the one that most resembles ‘my’ beliefs.

There are two items which are redlines which must be a pre-condition of the Lib Dems working with other Parties.

Firstly, we must revoke Article 50. This is a change from my previous position that we must aim for a referendum in which we would put the case for staying in the EU. Things have now gone too far.

Secondly, there must be an absolute commitment to electoral reform. The impasse in Parliament has largely happened because too many MPs are calculating their individual chances of survival in a haphazard ‘First Past the Post’ system which has failed to deliver a strong government. 

Both of these objectives can be delivered quickly in the kind of short-term Parliament which might exist after the next election. Then a General Election could be held in which the elections took place on the new STV system There are four areas where declarations of intent can be made now for wider discussions but where some things can be done very quickly.

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Paul Walter

How to bold, italicise & underline some of the text in your LDV comments

By Paul Walter | Sat 3rd August 2019 - 3:05 pm

A reader has asked about this.

If you want to add some special features to your comments on this site, you can use HTML coding.

Don’t be frightened.

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NewsHound

Listen to St Alban’s candidate Daisy Cooper: People are voting Lib Dem because of our values

By NewsHound | Sat 3rd August 2019 - 11:55 am

St Albans’ Lib Dem candidate Daisy Cooper was on The World at One yesterday talking about how people’s voting patterns are shifting and people are turning to the Lib Dems because of our values.

St Albans voted heavily to remain in the European election and they have a Leave supporting  Conservative MP who’s quite happy with no deal.

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Em Dean

Why do right wing immigration reformists like Liberal Canada’s points system?

By Em Dean | Sat 3rd August 2019 - 8:55 am

oris Johnson may have hoodwinked a number of European liberal activists by promising to instate a points-based, also known as “merit-based”, immigration system, something for which the Liberal Democrats advocated as recently as Brighton Conference last year.

In 2018, proponents of the immigration motion passed by Conference gave weight to their arguments by comparing the policy to Canada’s, a country generally seen as having a generous approach to migrants’ rights. This much is fair. But we should delve a bit deeper into that policy to understand why it’s suddenly popular with the anti-immigrant Conservative government.

Canada’s points system was established in 1967 by the Liberal government of Lester Pearson, an internationalist to his core. Canada’s previous system was based principally on a migrant’s country of origin and ties to Canada and the Commonwealth. At the time, immigration to Canada was 85% European, mostly from the UK and France. Canada was committed to opening its borders and its culture to place itself on the international stage.

But the nature of the Canadian economy restricted Canada’s otherwise bold immigration reform. Canada is, and was, an export economy, with much of the country’s GDP coming from its energy sector, and most of that coming from oil. With the massive consumer economy of the USA on its doorstep, retaining this status was and is crucial. 

So when I hear UK immigration pundits saying “be like Canada”, I often think of some weaselly post-EU theorists saying “be like Norway”. We’re not an export economy, and unless you’re a Brexiteer fantasist, it seems unlikely that we will be. The world doesn’t have an insatiable appetite for marmite, curiously shaped dogs, and novelty cheeses. Like it or not, we need low-skilled immigrants. We need relatively uneducated immigrants. Moreover, Canada did not (and does not) have a substantial demand for temporary workers. Britain, by contrast, needs large numbers of temporary workers to sustain its agricultural and construction sectors, among others.

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Rupinder Singh

Sunny Uplands and Baloney Economics: whence the falling Pound?

By Rupinder Singh | Fri 2nd August 2019 - 2:45 pm

The pound has hit a 2-year low and is the worst performing currency this year and there are still strong headwinds ahead for sterling, particularly if a No Deal Brexit ensues.

The circumstances facing the UK economy and the exchange rate remind me more about country risk scenarios that I faced for dodgy Emerging or Transition Economies, not a developed and mature economy such as the UK. 

All bar our more mature colleagues will have no memory of the dark days of the IMF led bailout of the UK in the 1960s. It’s worth therefore sketching out what the economic-cum-financial risks lie ahead if the “Sunny Uplands” scenario of Prime Minister Johnson starts to take shape, based on his statements and promises since his speech at the doors of 10 Downing Street.

The pound’s value in terms of other currencies is based several factors. Right now, the increasing risk of a “no deal” is scaring away demand for sterling and for sterling assets, thus pushing down the price or exchange rate in terms of other currencies – but the markets sense that there’ll still be a resolution or a further extension.

However, in the event of a “no deal” we will face a genuine currency crisis as investors pile out of sterling assets. These events tend to lead to an initial “overshooting” of the depreciation and we could easily see a further drop of 10, 15 or 20% – nobody really knows. With liberalised exchange rates there’s nothing to really hold back the initial loss of the pound’s value.

Ignoring the immediate hit for UK holiday makers facing a steep rise in the cost of holiday spending, what are the likely consequences for a no Deal as far as the pound is concerned?

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 18 Comments
Eugene Henry

Learn to code: the Technological Revolution

By Eugene Henry | Fri 2nd August 2019 - 1:18 pm

Can I shock you? The North doesn’t end at Manchester and Leeds. For all the bluff and bluster of a ‘northern powerhouse’ we heard when the Tories at least pretended to care, the investment mainly fell around those two main cities. It is true, they are seeing growth, prosperity and attracting young professionals and graduates to the city as businesses prosper and companies choose to open up northern hubs. However, the more rural areas in the North West (particularly West Cumbria) and the North East are seeing their regions stagnate and more alarmingly an exodus of young people who see no future in the area.

According to a recent BBC News study it is estimated that the under 30s population of these regions will significantly reduce over the next 20 years. 3 of the top 5 likely to be worst affected are from West Cumbria, with Copeland anticipated to see a 14% reduction in people under the age of 30. The North East doesn’t fair much better with 4 of the top 10 also from that region, the main county of Northumberland is expected to see the biggest drop of 11%. 

When you look at the common factor in all these regions it is no surprise that former industrial heartlands such as Redcar, Hartlepool and Copeland/Allerdale have a higher rate of youth and adult unemployment resulting in many young people to move away for university and never return. What is most concerning about all this is that there is no real long-term strategy in place to tackle the impending youth deficit, at least not from the two main parties. A reduction in people of working age of this size would also have a significant impact on the local economies of these areas a whole.

As always, the Lib Dems do things differently, and do it better. So why stop now? I propose we look to focus on inspiring investment and increased training for the digital economy, not just by public spending investment but encouraging local and national businesses to increase the number of training schemes and digital apprenticeships in rural areas, particularly those with poorer transport links. If we follow the excellent example set by Recode UK, a free coding training scheme in Bolton which is a joint supported venture by the local JCP and Telecom UK. By championing the private and public sector to educate young people in the tools for the future economy in these regions and help increase social mobility the long term impact will see the wider economy and businesses prosper as well.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 11 Comments
Caron Lindsay

What a brilliant time to be a Liberal Democrat!

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 2nd August 2019 - 11:48 am

So said a very smiley Jo Swinson as she gave an interview to Sky News this morning from the gorgeous town of Builth Wells. I had already decided to write a piece with that title this morning.

There are two things I will never get tired of seeing on news channel banners – Jo Swinson, Leader of the Liberal Democrats and Jane Dodds, MP for Brecon and Radnorshire.

Jane was also interviewed and she said she was going to hunt down Boris Johnson, wherever he may be hiding, and tell him that he has to take no deal off the table. She explained that the Lib Dems were a Remain party and we want to see a People’s Vote with the option to Remain.

I seem to have given myself an authentic by-election experience. I eventually got to bed at about 4:30 and woke up about 8:45 and decided that I wanted to get up to see the celebrations from Brecon. It had to be really early because Jo has to get from Brecon to be on stage with Iain Dale at the Fringe in Edinburgh at 6:00. I will be there too and I’m really looking forward to it. I may need a nap first, though.

Two days ago, it was 36 years since I joined the SDP on my 16th birthday. I can honestly say that the last few months have been amongst the best I’ve had in the party. We are in a place where the long held principles and values of the party are entirely in alignment with the national interest. Not only that, but we’re embracing it with a very clear message. Even John Curtice was saying positive things about us on BBC News, saying that nobody would have expected us to win Brecon and Radnorshire a few months ago.

We have three leaders across the country who are spirited, likeable and brilliant at delivering that message with confidence. Two are relatively new and all are now in Parliament. It’s been a real struggle for the Welsh Party to get the coverage while their leader didn’t hold elected office, but Jane is now in a much stronger position – and when she does get media, she’s really, really good at it.

Jo has only been UK leader for 11 days, but already she has been all over the media. And she showed her different style of leadership by getting out there and knocking up with Jane yesterday. Party leaders don’t often do that, but it’s very much her style to be in the thick of the action at these vital moments.

Willie Rennie has led us through some very dark times in Scotland. It’s largely down to the force of his personality, propensity for the most exuberant photo opps (as well as his affinity with farm animals) that we have managed to pull ourselves back up. We went into the 2016 election worried that we might end up with no MSPs at all and ended up winning constituency seats from the SNP.

This all compares very well to every other party. The Tories are a mess, although, like the Republicans with Trump, they seem to have been temporarily cowed by Boris. How long that truce will last as he drives the country to a no deal disaster is anybody’s guess. Not long would be my take. Whether Labour is capable of learning the very obvious lesson that its fence-sitting on Brexit is not doing it any good remains to be seen. But it’s not easy when you have a Brexiteer as leader of a party that wants to Remain.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 5 Comments
Paul Walter

Photo special: Brecon and Radnorshire victory

By Paul Walter | Fri 2nd August 2019 - 9:37 am

Here are some photos, via Getty Images, from last night and this morning, showing celebrations in Brecon and Radnorshire. Scroll down to see more photos. Hover over the photo to see the full caption, or click on the photo to go to its origin on the Getty Images website. The first photo below shows Jo Swinson speaking in the constituency at 8 o’clock this morning:

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Posted in Photo feature | Tagged , , , and | 9 Comments
Paul Walter

Brecon diary epilogue: Chocks away, Nigel!

By Paul Walter | Fri 2nd August 2019 - 8:15 am



The Brexit party plane over Brecon and Radnorshire yesterday

After an early night on Wednesday, my alarm went off at 4:50am on Thursday. I successfully managed to switch it off, disenabling the “snooze” function. So, of course, I then went back to sleep and woke up at 5:25am, leaving myself exactly 30 seconds to get dressed and into the car to meet Kirsten Johnson, North Devon PPC and LDV colleague.

The Llandrindod Wells office team gave us an exceptionally well ordered and tightly-knit set of “Good morning” leaflets which we delivered very quickly. Only about seven dogs started barking.

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Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged and | 12 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Morning round up – We did it! Welcome to Jane Dodds MP

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 2nd August 2019 - 6:30 am

If you’ve actually been asleep and not, like me, sat up all through the night to wait for the results, here’s a summary of the overnight electoral gymnastics.

Let’s start with a good local by-election:

And another one.

And now on to Brecon.

I’m writing this at 3:30 am when I have had more gin than is wise and I have just about stopped crying with happinesss. Jane Dodds MP.  That sounds good.

We did it!  will never forget that shot of Shaun Roberts and Dave McCobb on Sky News. They were smiling, and looking very smug indeed.

And Jane walking in and looking so happy.

Here’s the result in full:

Davies C  Conservative 12,401

Davies T   Labour 1,680

Dodds J 1 Liberal Democrat 13,826

Parkinson D Brexit 3381

Phillips L UKIP 242

Pink, Lily the 334

We have done it!!!

 

Jane’s speech, paraphrased:

People in Brecon and Radnorshire have sent a powerful message.

34 years ago a Liberal victory sparked a liberal revival.

People demand better.

The message from me and our new leader – is that you can have better, and better with the Liberal Democrats. This victory must be a turning point for not just for b and r but for our whole country too.

There is no time for tribalism when our country is faced with the threat of a no deal brexit.

My first act as MP will be to find Boris wherever he is hiding and tel him to rule out no deal Brexit now.

This is a time when people who share liberal values must work together which is why I want to thank the Green Party and Plaid Cymru to back me this time.

It is an immense privilege to follow in the footsteps of Roger Willians and Richard Livesey.

I am so glad I went down and spent those 4 days in Llandrindod Wells. LDV team members spent about 18 days there in all.

If you want to get to know Jane and what makes her tick better, here is my interview with her from  two weeks ago on Saturday.

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Caron Lindsay

2:50 am round up: Jane has done it and it wasn’t even that close

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 2nd August 2019 - 3:02 am

So we’ve done it! I will never forget that shot of Shaun Roberts and Dave McCobb on Sky News. They were smiling, and looking very smug indeed.

And Jane walking in and looking so happy.

It’ll be a while before I stop crying.

Here’s the result in full:

Davies C  Conservative 12,401

Davies T   Labour 1,680

Dodds J Liberal Democrat 13,826

Parkinson D Brexit 3381

Phillips L UKIP 242

Pink, Lily the 334

We have done it!!!

Jane’s speech, paraphrased:

People in Brecon and Radnorshire have sent a powerful message.

34 years ago a Liberal victory sparked a liberal revival.

People demand better.

The message from me and our new leader – is that you can have better, and better with the Liberal Democrats. This victory must be a turning point for not just for b and r but for our whole country too.

There is no time for tribalism when our country is faced with the threat of a no deal brexit.

My first act as MP will be to find Boris wherever he is hiding and tel him to rule out no deal Brexit now.

This is a time when people who share liberal values must work together which is why I want to thank the Green Party and Plaid Cymru to back me this time.

It is an immense privilege to follow in the footsteps of Roger Willians and Richard Livesey.

I am so glad I went down and spent those 4 days in Llandrindod Wells. LDV team members spent about 18 days there in all.

If you want to get to know Jane and what makes her tick better, here is my interview with her from  two weeks ago on Saturday.

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 20 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Brecon and Radnorshire by-election open thread

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 1st August 2019 - 11:06 pm

Well, it’s all over bar the counting. In just a few hours, we’ll know if Jane Dodds has succeeded in her attempt to become Wales’ only Liberal Democrat MP.

She has been an amazing candidate. We could not have asked more of her. She’s talked about local issues and Brexit, she’s been engaging and warm and kind.  We should all be very proud of the work she has done.

So, what happened in 2017?

Chris Davies (Conservative)                                20 081

James Gibson-Watt (Liberal Democrat)          12 043

Dan Lodge (Labour)                                                 7 335

Kate Heneghan (Plaid Cymru)                               1 229

Peer Gilbert (UKIP)                                                       576

This time, Plaid Cymru has stood aside in favour of Liberal Democrat Welsh Leader Jane Dodds.

The Brexit Party is represented by Des Parkinson, Labour by Tom Davies, UKIP by Liz Phillips and the Monster Raving Loony Party has Lady Lily the Pink.

The Liberal Democrats have had the weight of expectations in what was always going to be a tough fight. At the start of the campaign it looked like the Brexit Party might be our main opponents. However, since Boris Johnson took office and appointed a horrifically right wing extreme Brexiteer Cabinet, the Brexit Party has felt the squeeze as voters return to the Conservatives and their Brexiteer candidate. Whether enough Labour and Plaid voters have come to Jane remains to be seen.

When I was there a couple of weeks ago, I met Labour, Plaid and Green voters who were enthusiastically voting for Jane. I met a few very hostile people who were obviously looking for the most extreme form of Brexit to vote for. And there were so many people in the middle who had questions or who weren’t particularly motivated to go and vote. Whether we win tonight will depend on how many of these people we were able to persuade in the tail end of the campaign.

Postal votes went out six days before Boris took office so may well have a big Conservative/Brexit Party split.

It’s going to be close and this is going to be a very nervous few hours. Stick with us as we look at the commentary and try to stay awake…

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Posted in News | Tagged | 9 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems knocking up can be very useful….

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 1st August 2019 - 10:04 pm

I have never been on the receiving end of a Liberal Democrat knocking up operation at full pelt and I can imagine that, important though it is, it can be quite annoying.

However, Lib Dem campaigners calling round after 9pm at night can have their uses, as Harrow’s intrepid and brave Adam Bernard showed tonight:

https://twitter.com/AdamBernard_HA/status/1157023407298494464?s=20

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
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