Joshua Hindle

The Great Hack: What we should take away

By Joshua Hindle | Sat 27th July 2019 - 9:42 am

If you have  a Netflix account it’s likely you’ve already seen The Great Hack.  This near two hour documentary  details the Cambridge Analytica scandal and examines the wider issue of our rights to our data. For many Liberal Democrat campaigners and Pro-EU activists who have kept up with this whole scandal, what the documentary revels is not new  but it leaves us with a cause that should be a natural rally for the Liberal Democrats.  It creates a foundation for meaningful policy regarding the giants of Silicon Valley and how our democracy and use of social media can work in harmony with each other. 

The Great Hack hints towards a potential path for the party which links our belief in economic liberalism and property rights along with our belief in privacy and personal freedom. Currently the data which we willingly leak onto social media is just skin deep for the user but behind the curtain this data is valuable information for advertisers and campaigners to ensure that the ‘right’ advertisement on visible on your Facebook or Twitter news feed. Globally this can range from the harmless like a good deal for a tent on Amazon to horrific and extreme cases where military personal in Myanmar manipulated users  using Facebook to facilitate genocide towards the Rohingya people.

Every day in the UK we see thousands  drawn into arguments online  and very little room is left for compromise or compassion. To paraphrase Carol Cadwalladr, in an effort to connect people, these social media moguls have instead facilitated on driving us apart. This has allowed for a sense of invincibility of consequence to our words and a thin layer of anonymity where we dehumanise to an extent those we disagree with and pander to those we do. It is vital that the Liberal Democrats start to lead the charge on how we should be thinking of social media differently as this is now here to stay and will be (already is in some cases) a central part of our lives.

 To start we need to explore the idea of breaking down Facebook’s monopoly of social media as Sir Vince Cable has mentioned in the past. Even though since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke Facebook’s users took a very minor hit, those same users appeared to just simply switch to Instagram which is also owned by Facebook. Secondly we must be fighting now for a major review of our electoral law and its relation to social media especially after the Culture Committee expressed the current laws are not ‘fit for purpose’.

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Chris Fauske

Referendums: Getting it right next time

By Chris Fauske | Fri 26th July 2019 - 3:00 pm

No one needs any help demonstrating the problems with the current ad–hoc manner in which the UK conducts referendums.

But while it might be tempting to argue that the best solution is simply to stop having them, there are problems with that approach. 

First, I’m not at all sure it is politically sensible, or intellectually honest, to say that since lies, fraud, and gross misconduct constituted the bulk of the Brexit campaign the solution is simply to have no more referendums. There have been lies, fraud, and misconduct in political campaigns since electoral politics began. The solution has always been to find better ways to conduct the campaigns, not to scrap the practice.

The Liberal Democrats are a party fundamentally committed to opening up political discourse, and to doing so responsibly. Referendums are fraught with peril and, ironically, run the risk of being distinctly undemocratic, but that does not mean there cannot be a role for them as part of a broader expansion of legitimate political expression.

And as recent votes in Ireland have shown, to take one example, referendums can play a crucial role in securing progressive social gains.

As another example, here in Massachusetts, where I now live, voters last November defeated by an overwhelming majority an attempt by fundamentalist Christian groups to repeal a law designed to protect transgender people by allowing them to use the restroom of their choice in any building open to the public.

By permitting the question and conducting the referendum, voters had the opportunity to affirm the actions of their legislature and governor and stop in its tracks the type of hate and fear that festers when it can pretend to a legitimacy it does not possess.

Wary of referendums as I am, I’m not proposing a radical overhaul of the UK political system to allow for the types of confirmatory votes we hold here in Massachusetts, where we can also vote by referendum to instruct the legislature to introduce legislation.

Massachusetts, incidentally, makes it much harder to initiate a referendum question than do many U.S. states and, in many cases, and wisely so as the government problems caused in referendum-happy states such as California help demonstrate.

Referendums shouldn’t happen often.

They should only happen with good reason.

But there are times when they might well be appropriate.

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Jonathan Adcock

An Autumn election the Liberals should win

By Jonathan Adcock | Fri 26th July 2019 - 1:30 pm

This autumn, there will be general election. It will pit liberalism against conservatism. It will dictate who will be in power for the next few years. No, I’m not talking about the UK (although it is highly likely too), I’m talking about Canada. 

Four years on from Trudeau’s barn-storming election result, Canadians will return to the polls to elect their new government. The polls see the Liberals neck-and-neck with the Conservatives, so the election in October should be an interesting one. 

The poster boy of progressive politics has had a difficult 2019, after enjoying a three-year honeymoon period. His Carbon Tax has fallen flat across many of the ‘Prairie’ provinces, and his plans for a Trans Mountain Pipeline have seen many critics question his promise to Indigenous people and the environment. He also appeared to throw two of his ministers, Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott, under the bus for the SNC-Lavalin affair. 

In spite of this, Canadians should focus on his enormous successes. One million new jobs since 2015, roll out of the Canadian Child Benefit, record investment in transit, banning single-use plastics, tax cuts for the middle class (paid for by the top 1%), legalising marijuana, a strengthened Canada Pension Plan, as well as trade agreements with trans-Pacific partners, Europe, and the US and Mexico (USMCA). Imagine we had had similar policies in the UK over the last 4 years!

While he’s still seen across the globe as a highly popular statesman, he has a struggle on his hands to get re-elected. Regional elections since then in Liberal strongholds, such as the Atlantic provinces, have seen the Liberals lose ground. However, when Canadians enter the poll stations for the Federal Election, they have the real question over who they think best represents them, Trudeau or Conservative leader, Andrew Scheer. 

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Paul Hindley

We Lib Dems need to oppose austerity

By Paul Hindley | Fri 26th July 2019 - 11:55 am

The Liberal Democrats are the party of David Lloyd George, John Maynard Keynes and William Beveridge. We are the party that laid the foundations of the welfare state and pioneered support for Keynesian economics, which strived to create an economy of public investment in infrastructure, growth and full employment. Our party’s history is one which is staunchly against ‘slash and burn’ austerity.

Of course, during the Coalition Government, the party’s leadership supported the austerity programme of David Cameron and George Osborne. This continues to be used against us by supporters of other progressive parties, not least Labour, despite the fact that Labour also supported austerity. I hope no-one joined the Liberal Democrats to introduce the ‘bedroom tax’, support the benefits cap, cut legal aid, cut housing benefit to young people, introduce assessments for disability benefits or to support benefit sanctions. It is not a nice thought, but whether you think Coalition austerity was right or not, it has ruined people’s lives and led to thousands of preventable deaths.

Coalition austerity was not compatible with the liberalism of Lloyd George, Keynes or Beveridge and many Lib Dems opposed austerity during the Coalition Government. Since the Coalition, the party has clearly begun to move away from austerity. This began in 2015, when the Liberal Democrats opposed the Conservatives’ Welfare Bill, while Labour abstained. In the general election of 2017, our party was committed to reversing more welfare cuts than even Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. 

At our Autumn Conference last year, the ‘Demand Better’ policy motion committed the party to ‘a better society, in which everyone is supported in times of need, with an end to austerity’. Those three words, ‘end to austerity’, are absolutely essential if we are to win over more Remain voters, most of which vote for progressive parties. They are as important as the other two words for which our party is known for, ‘Stop Brexit’. Indeed, austerity has helped to fuel the rise of Brexit populism and therefore if we want to stop Brexit, we must end austerity.

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Caron Lindsay

The Lib Dem Lowdown – Swinson Surge Special

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 26th July 2019 - 10:15 am

Welcome to the thousands of people who have joined the Liberal Democrats this week. The Swinson Surge has seen our total number of members and supporters surpass 120,000. When you think that just 4 years ago, our membership wasn’t much more than 40,000, that is spectacular.

A Lib Dem Lowdown piece would not be complete without a Greg Foster (Lib Dem Head of Membership) GIF.

Though the GIFs are great, he may have to pay some attention to his hashtags.

It’s so great to check Twitter in the morning and see a whole rush of “I just joined the Lib Dems” posts on Twitter.

Some of our newest members are:

The Scottish Lib Dems have a new Councillor:

And he wasn’t the only former Conservative repelled by Boris Johnson. Justine Greening’s former special adviser joined us too.

As a new member – or an old one – the best thing you can do over the next few days is help us win the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election.. See more below in the real ale bit.

You might, by the way, have noticed the wee orange diamonds some people have on their Twitter posts to show that they are Lib Dems. Here’s how to get one:

You basically copy the code from here and then go into your Twitter profile paste it next to your name.

Every so often I roll out this post, which is basically a rehash of an article that I first wrote in May 2015 when many joined the party in the wake of the General Election result. I thought it might be useful to tell you a little bit about how our party works and give you a bit of an idea of the opportunities open to you. If you are not yet a member, if you like what you read, sign up here.

What do we believe?

Before we get into the nitty gritty of organisation, the best statement of who we are and what we’re about can be found in the Preamble to our Constitution which underlines how we believe in freedom, opportunity, diversity,  decentralisation and internationalism. Here’s a snippet:

The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity. We champion the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals, we acknowledge and respect their right to freedom of conscience and their right to develop their talents to the full. We aim to disperse power, to foster diversity and to nurture creativity. We believe that the role of the state is to enable all citizens to attain these ideals, to contribute fully to their communities and to take part in the decisions which affect their lives.

We look forward to a world in which all people share the same basic rights, in which they live together in peace and in which their different cultures will be able to develop freely. We believe that each generation is responsible for the fate of our planet and, by safeguarding the balance of nature and the environment, for the long term continuity of life in all its forms. Upholding these values of individual and social justice, we reject allprejudice and discrimination based upon race, colour, religion, age, disability, sex or sexual orientation and oppose all forms of entrenched privilege and inequality.

We have a fierce respect for individuality, with no expectation that fellow Liberal Democrats will agree with us on every issue. We expect our views to be challenged and feel free to challenge others without rancour. We can have a robust debate and head to the pub afterwards, the very best of friends.

Obviously, our priority at the moment is to stop Brexit, but there is so much more to us than that. That bit about no-one being enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity shapes everything that we do.

Your rights as a member

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Sorry

By Tom Arms | Fri 26th July 2019 - 8:55 am

To the Young People of Briton,

I am so sorry.  I really cannot apologise enough for landing you with a far-right, anti-EU government led by a delusional buffoon who appears to have abandoned reality in favour of policies which have more in common with blind religious faith than practical politics.

You may kindly respond: “It’s ok. You did what you could. It’s not your fault.” Thank you. That is very kind. But my generation (the baby boomers) collectively failed to do enough. If we had we would not be in the mess we are in today.  Furthermore, we would not be landing you – our children, grandchildren and future generations—with decades of debt coupled with a security and political mess.

Let’s just look at a few mathematical facts which our new prime minister whose single mindedness to ignore is matched only by his determination to exit the EU on 31 October regardless of the cost to the nation. Theresa May’s Brexit deal was bad enough. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimated that it would cost £100 billion a year, or £2,000 per British resident.

Still, her deal was nothing compared to Boris’s threatened No Deal. The respected UK Trade Policy Observatory has warned that the government is likely to have to cough up an extra £100 billion just to compensate businesses affected  by No Deal Brexit. This is before any account is taken of an anticipated fall in the value of the pound, increased holiday costs, damage to drug supplies and the NHS, drop in foreign trade investment, transport snarl-ups, increased tariffs, the end of EU regional grants and research money, inflation, security cooperation  cost of trade negotiations and the vital need for political and economic stability amongst our continental neighbours.

The Office of Budget Responsibility has already warned that the British economy is slowing down as foreign investors reluctantly accept that No Deal is now the most likely scenario. In fact, the OBR are predicting that if No Deal goes ahead the economy will shrink by two percent a year for the foreseeable future.

So what is our new prime minister’s response? Well, to start with he dismisses these expert reports as essentially fake news. Then he announces that instead of trying to adjust government spending to accommodate his political ambitions, he will increase it.

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Caron Lindsay

A double Lib Dem GAIN in Gloucester

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 26th July 2019 - 7:41 am

Good news to wake up to this morning. The Liberal Democrats have gained not one but TWO Council seats in Gloucester – one each from Labour and the Conservatives. The one from Labour was proper knife edge stuff. Not between us and Labour, who absolutely tanked because, you know, what is the point of them these days? We won by three votes from the Conservatives.

There was a nail biting recount in Podsmead where Sebastian Field triumphed and Ashley Bowkett won in Barnwood.

Here are the changes from last time:

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The Voice

“Is he all talk and no trousers?” Jo’s first question to PM Boris

By The Voice | Thu 25th July 2019 - 11:11 pm

Jo Swinson had her first chance to question Boris Johnson today, as he made his first statement as Prime Minister.

Here’s the full exchange from Hansard:

The 3 million EU citizens are our family, our friends, our neighbours, our carers, yet for three years they have been made to feel unwelcome in our country. They deserve better than warm words and more months of anxiety. They deserve certainty, now. The Prime Minister has made assurances, so will he back the Bill of my Lib Dem colleague Lord Oates, which would guarantee in law the rights of EU citizens? Or is he all talk and no trousers?

The answer pretty much confirmed that that was indeed the case.

The Prime Minister
I congratulate the hon. Lady on her own election and join her in insisting on the vital importance of guaranteeing the rights and protections of the 3.2 million who have lived and worked among us for so long. Of course, we are insisting that their rights are guaranteed in law. I am pleased to say that under our settlement scheme some 1 million have already signed up to enshrine their rights.

Jonny Oates explained earlier this month why his Bill was much better than settled status.

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Caron Lindsay

A peek into Jane Dodds’ Llandrindod Wells office

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 25th July 2019 - 6:35 pm

This time last week, I was delivering leaflets in Llandrindod Wells. I would love to go back, but family circumstances make it impossible before the by-election next Thursday.

So, it would be really great if someone would go in my place. Or even if lots of people went in my place. They really need to talk to as many people as possible. The little conversations you have with people can answer their questions and move them from potentially not voting or voting for someone else, to voting for Jane. And Jane is definitely worth voting for.

I want to see someone with her wisdom and kindness on our benches. She is so committed to tackling poverty, inequality and loneliness – as well as getting better health and transport services and better connectivity in this huge and gorgeous rural constituency. Catch up with the chat I had with her here.

If you do head to Brecon you will meet some lovely people. Here is the team at work in the Llandrindod Wells office last Sunday..

Every time the shelves look like they are getting empty, they fill up again.

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Sal Brinton

Sal Brinton writes…Tell us who you think deserves Party Awards

By Sal Brinton | Thu 25th July 2019 - 3:35 pm

Do you know someone special who deserves to be recognised by the party?

Yes, it’s party awards time!

Every year at Autumn Conference we hand out prestigious party awards to members who have done some of the most outstanding work in the party. Going above and beyond the call of duty time and time again.

But, as always, we need you to nominate the people that you think are blazing the way in the party.

The deadline for nominations has been extended to 31 July and the nomination form and submission details are on the party website 

There are four awards announced by me as President.

The President’s Award is open to any party member elected to public office and who has demonstrated excellence and commitment over the years.

The Harriet Smith Liberal Democrat Distinguished Service Award is open to any member never elected to public office who has demonstrated longstanding and outstanding service to the party.

For both these awards, the panel will be looking for outstanding commitment and service to the party. We are seeking people who deserve recognition for their hard work, long service & demonstrable dedication to the party at any level.

The Belinda Eyre-Brooks Award is given to recognise and celebrate the efforts of people who work for our elected representatives in their local areas – from local party employees, to political assistants to council groups, to people working in MPs’ constituency offices.

The Dadabhai Naoroji Award is presented to the local party that has done most to promote BAME participants to elected office as councillors, Assembly Members, MPs, MSPs or MEPs. Please note – this award is to a local party, not to an individual, so please think about those local parties that are making a great effort to involve different communities in their work. Regions and State Parties nominate local parties, so tell them about a local party that should be nominated.

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News Meerkat

Jo tables motion of no confidence in Boris Johnson’s government

By News Meerkat | Thu 25th July 2019 - 2:05 pm


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Leader of the Liberal Democrats Jo Swinson MP has tabled a motion calling for a vote of no confidence in the new Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. She has also written to Jeremy Corbyn urging him to move an official motion of no confidence in Boris Johnson.

Speaking having tabled the motion, Jo Swinson said:

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Coalition? Who cares?

By Alex Wasyliw | Thu 25th July 2019 - 12:45 pm

coalSo the Lib Dem leader election is over and predictably Labour have gone full on coalition grievance mongering in response. They’d have done this whoever won, no doubt somewhere in Labour HQ there is an unused “This is what Ed doesn’t want you to know” video.

It seems to have fallen a bit flat, which is a good sign that people are reacting less viscerally but that doesn’t mean all is fine, it just means people are prepared to think about it.

People are listening to us again. 

The coalition and austerity will come up and we need to be able to address it. To be fair, we owe it to the public and ourselves to address it.

It’s unarguable that austerity happened whilst we were in coalition. Cuts were made and these cuts made people’s lives harder. It’s legitimate to care about that, irrespective of the reasons behind our decisions.

Every time I’ve heard Lib Dems address this I feel we still haven’t found a way of talking about it that recognises this legitimacy and can start rebuilding bridges.

When someone raises austerity we react as if they are asking us why we supported the policies of austerity. We talk about the economic climate, we talk about the lack of options, we talk about the fact we were in coalition and had to compromise, or maybe about how every party intended to make cuts.

Sometimes we make these points well, sometimes not so well but the real problem is we are addressing it from the wrong perspective. 

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Bernard Aris

No deal Brexit preparations: Dutch look closely but don’t see much (Part 1)

By Bernard Aris | Thu 25th July 2019 - 11:15 am

Whoever looks at British-Dutch relations, especially in trade and food (herring), you see a relationship dating back to the Roman Empire, with the Frisians (a tribe in the North of the present Netherlands) kicking off the chain of English/British-Dutch relationships. 

The modern relations can be traced back to the British-Dutch anti-Spanish alliance of queen Elizabeth I (sending over her confidant Leicester) in the Treaty of Nonsuch (1585; see Jonathan Israel’s book about the Dutch Republic; Clarendon/Oxford University Press; Oxford, 1995, p. 218-230). This treaty was implicit recognition of the Republic; and the shenanigans between Leicester and the Dutch stadholder and his minister Oldebarnevelt in 1585-87 gave definite form to the Republic, until then a confederation of rebel provinces. It ended up with Leicester returning home; but Nonsuch was reinforced and broadened in the 1598 Treaty of Westminster.

The Low Countries’ principalities trading with England (Flanders, Zeeland, Holland, Friesland) were all smaller than England, and this didn’t change with seven rebel provinces forming a republic; especially because shortly afterwards, under king James I, the union between England and Scotland started being formalized until the Acts of Union (1707). So the Dutch and Flemish peoples are used to look very closely what happens in their big neighbor  the UK, especially as it affects our (Dutch) trade relations (re-exporting a large part to the rest of the EU), and our and their national economy. The UK is around three to four times bigger than the Netherlands if you look at our populations and economies (GDP).

The hard Brexiteers around Boris Johnson are emphasising, now that a No Deal Brexit on their holy grail date of 31st  October seems ever more likely, that the British government is even better prepared than under the March Brexit deadline. 

We Dutch simply don’t believe them, because we see at best a piecemeal, halfhearted if not comically incompetent British preparation (hiring a shipping company without ships, aiming to disembark at a British port city that on BBC TV News does look more disheveled that well-prepared for intensive disembarkation operations).

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NewsHound

Jo: A General Election? Bring it on….

By NewsHound | Thu 25th July 2019 - 9:43 am

Jo Swinson was on Newsnight talking about the new Cabinet. She said that she had written to Jeremy Corbyn asking him to call a Vote of No Confidence. When asked about whether she wanted to see a General Election, she said: “Absolutely. Bring it on.”

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Caron Lindsay

Perfectly pitched – Jo’s first PMQ

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 24th July 2019 - 10:37 pm

It’s quite difficult to find the right words for your first appearance at Prime Minister’s Questions. But when your debut coincides with the departure of the Prime Minister, it’s even tougher.

You don’t want to be too attacking given that the person you are questioning has just been forced out of office, even if she has been responsible for the hostile environment.

What Jo managed with this question was to land blows Boris, who she’s said consistently is not fit to be PM and to give May the opportunity to attack Labour for being the only party not to have had a woman leader.

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ALDC

ALDC Advice: Building your campaign team

By ALDC | Wed 24th July 2019 - 5:00 pm

Summer provides the perfect time to piece together your campaign team in advance of your next set of elections.

In a single ward election, your team doesn’t need to be huge to win. Just sharing the load between a few committed people will make victory achievable and the process a lot more fun.

You’ll want to engage as many people as possible for your team of volunteers. But this is not the case with your core team which should be kept small. Larger teams mean big meetings which will slow you down; campaigns require speed and decisiveness. The team should be able to meet regularly and make decisions quickly and effectively. Try to choose people who will work hard and lead by example.

If you’re aiming to fight multiple areas on the same day, it will often be useful to have the same core team in place for all the areas. The team will then be able to make decisions about the whole area without duplication.

The basic core team should include:

  • Candidate
  • Campaign manager/agent (or both if these are not the same person)
  • Literature manager
  • Data manager
  • Media manager

 

Leadership: job roles for the core team

The core team will plan the campaign. It is never too early to start this process and you can do it without a candidate if necessary. The team will then lead the campaign, taking responsibility for the strategy and its implementation. Each member of the core team has their own individual responsibilities too:

Candidate: The figurehead, who will through necessity, provide leadership to the wider team, particularly with canvassing and fundraising. It is vital that the rest of the core team respect the candidate’s views. It is different when it’s your name on the leaflets! But it is also important that the candidate shares control and the overall planning with the core team. After all it is teams not individuals that win elections.

Campaign manager/agent: These are two jobs, but they can easily be combined. The campaign manager is the overall campaign organiser. They will provide internal leadership and bring the team together, making sure that every other role is being filled successfully. The agent’s role is a complex and responsible one. All agents should read both the Agent’s Manual and the Basic Election Law book to get a full grasp of the role. Needless to say the final legal buck for everything stops with the agent, so all major decisions must involve them.

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Anthony Durham

How will Boris fix the Irish border problem?

By Anthony Durham | Wed 24th July 2019 - 1:25 pm

Boris ‘Kipper’ Johnson appears to believe that technological solutions can quickly be found for the Irish border problem. Everyone in the computer industry knows that is fantasy, which would lead to an orgy of criminality.

Right now, clever people are thinking about juicy ways to make money from a new land frontier, or just to cause trouble. My own taste runs more to throwing grit in bureaucracy than throwing mud at surveillance cameras, but readers can probably think of far worse things to do.

We should be thinking about another side to this issue. The day is not far off when all road vehicles will be permanently tracked, much as mobile phones and airliners already are. This will be part of the self-driving revolution, promised to reduce vehicle usage, air pollution, and road accidents. In principle, having a tracker in your car should be voluntary, but of course government and insurance companies will make it compulsory.

If Mr Kipper gets his way, every border-crosser in Ireland will be tracked. Not just vehicles and the commercial goods they carry, but also all passengers, human, animal, and explosive. There will be penalties for evasion, massive databases to be hacked by cyber-criminals, and huge scope for corruption. Mission creep will lead to facial recognition software, cross-correlation with phone data, etc.

But BoJo’s folly may have a silver lining. Back in 1964 the Smeed Report on Road Pricing spelled out how road users ought to pay the costs they impose upon others. It contained so much good sense that successive governments buried it, but Smeed’s ideas must prevail eventually. A future in which every vehicle is tracked (and charged) for every yard it moves is scary, but it would solve many problems near me in south-east London.

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Caron Lindsay

LDV talks to….Jane Dodds

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 24th July 2019 - 11:54 am

Last Saturday, I caught up with our wonderful Brecon and Radnorshire candidate Jane Dodds.

We talked about her campaign, her message to Plaid Cymru and Green voters and what she wanted to achieve for the area. Enjoy.

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Charley Hasted

A big thank you to Ed and Jo for championing Trans rights

By Charley Hasted | Wed 24th July 2019 - 10:30 am

As the dust begins to settle after the Leadership Election (and many congratulations to Jo and commiserations to Ed) there will, as usual, be time for some self-evaluation and reflection for the party, even if the other leadership election that’s happened means there might be a bit less of it than normal!

With that in mind I only have one thing to add to everything else that will be going on in the coming days and that’s a note of thanks to Jo and Ed for their unwavering support for trans people during the Leadership election. You both stood by us, unswervingly, even when it led to you getting so much abuse for that stance. It would have been so easy to step back and dial it down. To make vague equivocal noises about supporting equality. To throw us under the bus as we have been so many times before. Thank you for not doing the easy thing.

Both Jo and Ed showed yet again that the real essence of liberalism is doing the right thing and not the easy thing. Giving trans people a place to feel welcomed and at home at a time when we are so under attack in the media and everywhere we go was definitely not the easy thing for either of you to do. It has meant so much to the trans people I know in the party (and even quite a few outside it) to see you both prove that you will stand with us against those attacks, which frankly makes us unique as a party, and show conclusively that there is no place for bigotry and transphobia in the Liberal Democrats.

At a time when every other party has been backing down in the face of those attacks, you both stepped forward. Thank you for proving beyond a doubt that whatever your differences and whatever the future brings we have had a choice between two true liberals.

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Paul Walter

Prime Minister Johnson – two potential glimmers of positivity

By Paul Walter | Wed 24th July 2019 - 8:45 am


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I could ramble on for ages on the negative aspects of Prime Minister Johnson. There are, however, two glimmers of positivity:

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Tahir Maher

Welcome to Jo

By Tahir Maher | Tue 23rd July 2019 - 5:30 pm

As everyone will have heard by now, Jo Swinson is our new Party leader. I want to congratulate her and also congratulate Ed Davey for a spirited campaign that he ran. I had several opportunities to watch both of them in hustings and to be honest both were impressive.

In her acceptance speech, the two points that struck home was when she said (I paraphrase) that “She had limitless ambition for the party” and “she would fight the next election to be the Prime Minister”.  I like such ambition as it gives focus.

This got me thinking, what values does the average …

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Paul Reynolds

Boris is PM.   What comes next?

By Paul Reynolds | Tue 23rd July 2019 - 2:55 pm

That depends on what Boris’s backers are planning. All we know for sure is that he appears intent on crashing out of the EU without any trade, immigration, transition or prior obligations arrangements.

We know something else. Boris has also presented his ‘WTO-Article-24-managed-no-deal-standstill-plan’. There has been lots of media coverage explaining why this plan is impossible, including myself on LDV.

Despite that, the Brexiteers are all still going on about this as if it is still feasible. Why?

As Boris’s recent interview with Andrew Neil suggested, he doesn’t know that his ‘standstill plan’ is not viable. His backers however know very well that this plan is just ‘Brexiteer social media fodder’ and a dead end.

The most likely explanation is that it is part of the planned blame game. For the Brexiteer base and the dominant pro-Brexit press, being able to blame the EU for crashing out is vital to the patriotic tsunami that they have planned for our country. That is what the debunked ‘standstill’ is really for. This might also explain why Boris’s reported ‘first 100 days’ team seems to be populated with  TV and press executives & experts, rather than trade specialists.

Of course, parliament may still block no deal, forcing a general election. Then the Lib Dems have a different tasks. For now we have to plan for the worst.

What is the Lib Dems’ plan of action on 1st November if the UK has crashed out of the EU the day before?

To clarify, Boris’s advisers will probably attempt four paths.

One is some kind of interim EU agreement excluding (eg) services, and agriculture, but this will be full of hiccups, with outcomes anathema to the ERG.

The alternative would be a quick skeletal-but-broader trade agreement for a range of tangible goods reducing the negative economic effects of no deal in the hardest hit areas. Without a ‘divorce deal’ however, the EU, being in a strong negotiating position, will have a long list of demands and future revisions. To stay in power with Brexiteer support Boris will have to somehow conceal the detailed schedules to this potential mini-agreement.

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Paul Walter

“Mandate”? A.B.dP.Johnson has a mandate from 0.14% of the UK population

By Paul Walter | Tue 23rd July 2019 - 12:57 pm

There have been a number of Tory voices saying that A.B.dP.Johnson has a “mandate”. It is important to recognise that this “mandate” is from precisely 0.14% of the UK population:

For the record, those parroting the “mandate” word have included our old china plate, Dominic Raab on Radio Five Live (just after the result was announced) and Tim Montgomerie on Twitter:

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Lord William Wallace

Lord William Wallace writes…How do we beat the libertarian, populist right?

By Lord William Wallace | Tue 23rd July 2019 - 11:55 am

Could you envisage putting together ‘an informal alliance of the centre left’ in the (highly possible) run-up to a general election this autumn?  The phrase comes from Labour’s David Blunkett, setting out the case for attempting this in the Mail on Sunday (July 14th). He argues that we face the threat of a parallel informal alliance between the Brexit Party and a Johnson-led Conservative Party, with the Brexit Party not standing in seats held by right-wing Tory Brexiters and focussing their money and efforts on Remain-supporting Labour, LibDem, and nationalist constituencies (and any surviving Conservative Remainers).  This would threaten a landslide of seats won, despite a majority of votes distributed among contending left of centre parties. 

In our cruelly unforgiving electoral system, a campaign in which four parties (now including Farage’s Brexit Party) capture 20-25% of votes each, with Greens and nationalists splintering votes further, could see many seats won on less than 30% of votes cast.  If the Brexit Party were to put up candidates in only selected seats, with an informal alliance with right-wing Tories not to oppose them, it could produce disproportionate gains for those who want not only a hard break with the EU but also to cut taxes and welfare further and shrink the state, while their competing opponents collected wasted votes in separate piles.  Blunkett’s ‘killer fact’ is that, at least on the evidence of recent polling, the combination of Conservative and Brexit support adds up to around 45%, whereas Labour, LibDems and Greens together add up to 47%.

In the surreal atmosphere of current Westminster politics, party loyalties are already crumbling.  One Conservative MP told me the other day, with apparent pride, that his children were now voting Liberal Democrat; one Labour MP did her best to persuade me that the Liberal Democrats had a real chance of winning the two neighbouring seats to her own constituency, and should concentrate their efforts on those rather than her own.  When the Conservatives are polling below 30%, and with Labour falling in some polls below 20%, it concentrates minds.  

We too must adjust our perspectives.  Fighting a Johnson-led Conservative Party and a Corbyn-led Labour Party, we can raise our sights beyond the 60-odd seats we thought we might regain.  One of Labour’s long-term pollsters has just declared support for the LibDems on the grounds, amongst others, that we could well emerge from a messy election as the largest party, with 200 or more seats.  But that still leaves 450 seats we might not be able to win.  What should we do in these?

Any form of cross-party alliance negotiated from the top would be impossibly difficult – whatever David Blunkett might propose.  Labour’s National Executive would never countenance such an arrangement, let alone the ‘common platform’ that Blunkett thinks should underpin it.  My response to Blunkett’s proposal, posted on the ‘Left Foot Forward’ website, has attracted more purist denials and anti-LibDem comments than supporters.  It’s hard enough to negotiate constituency priorities with the Greens: their target seats and high local memberships overlap with ours, so it’s hard for either to give way.  And in many cities and industrial towns, Liberal Democrats are the major opposition to Labour, with hostility on both sides and hopes that we will take seats off them  In Scotland and Wales strong nationalist parties make for further complications – though note that Plaid Cymru has stood down in our favour in Brecon and Radnor, alongside the Greens.

Iain Brodie Browne and I opened a discussion on cooperation with other parties at the Social Liberal Forum conference on July 20th.  Responses varied according to how existential a threat to Britain’s social contract and future prosperity the election of a hard right Tory/Brexit Party majority would present.  Those who see this threat as overriding loyalty to different parties argued that we have to try to strike bargains with other parties and with independents, however difficult it may be.

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Eleanor Rylance

I’m delighted it’s Jo, even though I voted for Ed

By Eleanor Rylance | Tue 23rd July 2019 - 8:55 am

I spoke at party conference in the Spring and said, amongst other things, that I had no idea why I hadn’t started sooner in politics. The truth is I knew full well.

Back in the early 1990s, when I had my first child at the age of 25, and a couple more in a short space of time, only one of us *had* to take time off straight after the birth. Maternity segued into parental leave after the second child. My husband and I have a pretty egalitarian household but it would have been financial suicide for us to use paid childcare that early in our lives- we would have ended up paying over not only my entire salary, but also some of my husband’s- it simply wasn’t financially viable.

After the first child, I went back to work, but it seemed that everywhere I turned I was on the “mummy track”, not expected to be ambitious, expected in fact to focus my entire world around my children. Which of course every new parent does. Paternity leave did not exist, even in my husband’s forward-thinking workplace. Society at large expected care of the children to be the mother’s, not the father’s, concern. The entirety of society was built around that premise- for example, my children’s school finished at 2:50pm- there was no after-school care because the headteacher thought children should be at home after that time. There was great judgement cast on mothers who worked when their children were small.

I started to be politically active 3 years ago. I’ve passed the age now where I care what people think about my parenting. Alongside my three now very accomplished 20-somethings, I also have a 9 year old and in 2019, no-one in the Liberal Democrats seems to think that puts me out of the running for anything. I’m older, and I live in a beautiful bubble of determination and bullheaded refusal to take any hints about how I *should* parent my fourth child. Society has also moved on slightly.

Every time I see Jo Swinson in passing, I mention to her how lovely it is to see her making speeches with baby Gabriel strapped to her front, how much of an inspiration it is to see her forging ahead babies and all. I I forget that I’m living in a bubble hewn from my own experiences.

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Caron Lindsay

The Swinson Surge is under way

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 22nd July 2019 - 10:22 pm

So we’re gaining more new members and supporters on the back of Jo Swinson’s compelling speech just after she was elected leader.

1200 by the time she made her rally speech three hours later.

Here’s a selection:

https://twitter.com/marcmulligan/status/1153332067922534400?s=20

https://twitter.com/NEnchants/status/1153215124838264833?s=20

If you are wondering what we mean, watch her speech here.

 

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Caron Lindsay

WATCH LIVE: Jo Swinson’s first rally

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 22nd July 2019 - 7:45 pm

Liberal Democrats are gathering in London to welcome Jo Swinson as leader at a rally. Watch it live here.

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Caron Lindsay

In full: Jo Swinson’s first speech as Lib Dem Leader: Don’t just shout at the television, join us and transform our country

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 22nd July 2019 - 6:00 pm

Text below:

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Caron Lindsay

And our new leader is…….Jo Swinson

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 22nd July 2019 - 4:24 pm

 

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Caron Lindsay

Cheers, Vince

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 22nd July 2019 - 3:27 pm

His successor will be announced soon, but we really need to say a massive thank you to Vince for the work he has done over the past two years.

He took on a party which was not in the best place. He leaves a party which is rejuvenated, united, determined, confident and has given up equivocation and nuance in favour of a give zero hoots attitude that has paid dividends in terms of the number of members, councillors and MEPs we have.

I have had my disagreements with Vince during his time as leader. I felt that the emphasis on a supporters’ scheme was misplaced when what we actually needed to be doing was to tell our story better. But he did take the time to seek out views in the party and listen to people. Leaders are always going to do stuff that activists don’t like. It goes with the territory. Whoever wins today is going to annoy me at some point – and one of the candidates has been a really good friend for the best part of two decades.

Vince has consistently been the grown up of British politics for way beyond these past two years to be honest. He knows everything and everybody and has been essential in developing the cross party working that’s been going on over Brexit. He has laid the foundations for collaboration that could put paid to this Brexit disaster once and for all. And it is his strong friendship with Chuka Umunna, forged in the years they faced each other at the Dispatch Box when Vince was Business Secretary, that facilitated Chuka joining us.

And he has been really clear about the behaviour we will not tolerate in the Lib Dems. Last Summer he wrote that bigots of any kind are not welcome in our party:

The lazy use of group stereotypes should be unacceptable to us all. But we must not be blind to the fact that these issues affect our party as well.

The Liberal Democrats have always been at the forefront of the fight for equality, and we have a record on these issues of which we’re very proud.

But sadly, the truth is that a very small minority of our own members do hold some views that are fundamentally incompatible with our values.

Our party’s constitution is clear:

We reject all prejudice and discrimination based upon race, colour, religion, age, disability, sex or sexual orientation and oppose all forms of entrenched privilege and inequality.

As a liberal, I respect people’s rights to hold different views to my own, but my message to everyone is that racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, sexism, transphobia and bigotry are not welcome, and not tolerated, in the Liberal Democrats.

We should also say thank you to his wife, Rachel Smith, who has travelled the length and breadth of the country with him. Being a leader’s spouse is not an easy job.

On a lighter note of my favourite Vince moments was when he turned up at Not the Leaders’s Speech in Bournemouth in 2017. In a tradition dating back to the coalition years, certain of the Awkward Squad don’t bother with the Leader’s Speech at Conference. They gather in a hostelry and watch it on Twitter, working out at which point they would have walked out had they been in the hall. To be fair, the potential for walking out has significantly reduced in recent years, but anyway. It turned out that following a motion on pubs, a photo-op had been arranged with Vince for after his speech. In the same pub as NTLS.

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