The Problem of Moderation

A question that has plagued the party since inception and has, in recent years, come to the forefront is the question of identity. How do the Liberal Democrats define themselves? It seems to me that when members and supporters speak about the topic the same two words repeat themselves – “moderate” and “centrist”. As a result, these words have become synonymous with the term “liberal”. This article, the first of two, will cover the problems I have identified with this synonymity, the first target being the term “moderate”.

The main problem lies in how the term is actually used. For example, when one takes a diet of moderation all things are accounted for and everything is presented on the plate in equal measure. This approach, however, is not one that quite works within internal party political discourse. When we mention, say, Ken Clarke we can quantify him as being a “moderate Tory”, a believer in conservatism with a leash. Owen Smith is a “Labour moderate”, a social democrat rather than a democratic socialist – a Labourite with a leash. They still belong to the Right and to the Left but they do not take their ideologies too far.

Yet when it comes to a Liberal Democrat the same cannot be said. Who can, or could, be described as a “moderate Lib Dem”? This term would be akin to tying a tight leash around a short leash in a mobius strip of stasis.

So, then, one can only be “moderate” relative to the rest of the party or ideological camp that one finds oneself in. Now this is established we can get to the root of the problem, one of the party’s actual ideology, or ideological spectrum. The other parties can have moderates as they have ideological principals that underpin their ideas. Moderates, just like everyone else around them, agree with the means, goals, and ends of the parties they represent.

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What do the local elections tell us about Lib Dem prospects?

When it comes to local election results, punditry usually heads in one of two directions. Either the local elections will be held up as an ironclad prediction for the next general election result or they are an utter irrelevance which tells you nothing about how people will vote in national elections.

Strangely, which of the two positions punditry tends towards seems to be very much linked to whether the local elections have been bad or good for the party backed by the pundit in question.

As you might expect, of course, the truth lies somewhere in between – and the data can actually tell us something useful about Liberal Democrat prospects at the next general election, whenever that may be.

For decades various teams of political scientists have been working out National Equivalent Vote Shares (NEVS) based on local election results. That is, they take the raw figures and make adjustments to take account of the fact that local elections take place in different parts of the country each year (for instance, most of the councils which had elections in May this year won’t have elections again until 2022).

This means that the NEVS is, broadly speaking, a reliable snapshot of support for each party UK-wide at the time of the local elections.

However, this does not mean that a NEVS is the same thing as how the party will perform in a general election. In the case of the Lib Dems, we have routinely underperformed our NEVS from the previous year in a general election.

The table below shows the Lib Dem performance in each of the past six general elections as well as our NEVS in the year before’s local elections. As can be seen, typically the Lib Dem vote has dropped by 1 to 7 points between the local election and the general election – and the two general elections with the lowest drop were dominated by the Iraq War and Cleggmania respectively, making them fairly atypical.

GE Result Year Before’s NEVS Difference
1997 17% 24% -7
2001 19% 26% -7
2005 23% 27% -4
2010 24% 25% -1
2015 8% 13% -5
2017 7% 14% -7

 

So, given that the typical drop has been 6 or 7 points, what does this tell us about Lib Dem prospects at the next general election?

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LibLink: Sal talks about International Day of Persons with Disabilities

Yesterday was International Day of Persons with Disabilities and Lib Dem President Sal Brinton wrote a blog highlighting issues disabled people face. It begins:

I am very aware that one billion people around the world live with a disability – that’s roughly 15% of the global population. I am one of them, mainly using a wheelchair and sometimes walking with sticks. I could have written something smooth and supportive, but I am angry at having to be an afterthought in our society today.

I’ll be frank. Most people are not aware of the daily barriers and difficulties that we face, whether it is the benefits system using the medical model of disability, making decisions about us that bear no relation to our lived experience, or travel – whether by bus, train, taxi or plane – where both the companies running transport and the wider public have no idea of how difficult even the simplest journey can be.

As a senior politician, I turn up to event after event around the country, including TV interviews, where I cannot get to the stage or platform. As a traveller, I have been left on trains at 10pm at night, been reduced to tears in airports, been offered an accessible room in a hotel to discover it has a bath, not a shower…. Many other disabled people can add to this tale of frustration!

Sal continues:

I want to thank friends and colleagues who are supportive on social media when I post if things have gone wrong. But we need a more fundamental rethink. People with disabilities need everyone to come on side and help us to change the system.

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Urgent action needed on prisons’ crisis

HM Chief Inspector of Prisons’ report on HMP Birmingham has just been released. The inspection report found that violence and drug-taking were rife at HMP Birmingham, with many staff working in fear and unable to maintain control.

Responding to this, Lib Dem Home Affairs Spokesperson Ed Davey has called for urgent action to reduce overcrowding in prisons and recruit more prison officers.

Ministers need to get a grip on the crisis in our prisons. The violence and chaos isn’t confined to HMP Birmingham – we keep hearing similar reports from across the country.

Prisons are stuffed full of people on short-term sentences, which cost millions and don’t work to prevent crime. Overwhelmed staff are simply unable to cope, leading to riots, widespread drug use and violence against staff.

The Liberal Democrats demand better. The Government must urgently recruit more prison officers and bring forward legislation to end pointless short-term sentences and reduce overcrowding.

Our goal must be to transform prisons into places of rehabilitation and recovery, to cut re-offending and make our communities safer.

In August, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons issued an “urgent notification” letter alerting the Government to the appalling conditions in HMP Birmingham. He has also issued urgent notifications this year in respect of three other prisons: Nottingham, Exeter and Bedford.

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3 December 2018 – today’s press releases

It’s been a busy day, perhaps not a great surprise as the Brexit debate in the Commons reaches its denouement…

  • Cable: Halt “egregious imbalance” of May vs Corbyn Brexit debate
  • Lib Dems back amendment to stop no deal Brexit
  • Lib Dems: Govt have held Parliament in contempt
  • Govt remain clueless on immigration
  • Lib Dem peers defeat Government on civil liberties (see here for our earlier coverage)
  • PM must stop pandering to the Saudi regime
  • Lib Dems lead fight for renters’ rights
  • Govt must publish Brexit legal advice

Cable: Halt “egregious imbalance” of May vs Corbyn Brexit debate

Today Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Vince Cable has called on the …

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Lib Dem Press Release: Lib Dem peers defeat Government on civil liberties

Liberal Democrat peers have defeated the Government on a key vote on the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill.

Amendment 15, tabled jointly by Liberal Democrat frontbench spokesperson Brian Paddick and two Labour peers, creates exemptions to the new offence of “entering or remaining in a designated area” so that it doesn’t apply to aid workers, journalists, people visiting ill relatives or those attending funerals.

The amendment passed by 220 votes to 191.

Liberal Democrat peers also voted for another amendment, tabled jointly by Lord Paddick and Baroness Jones, to limit the Bill’s impact on freedom of speech. However, Labour abstained and Tory peers voted against the amendment, so it failed by 93 votes to 198.

Liberal Democrat MPs had previously voted against the Bill in the House of Commons, joined only by Caroline Lucas, but Labour voted with the Tories to pass it 376–10.

Brian Paddick, Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson for Home Affairs, said:

Through our opposition to these unnecessary, illiberal new laws, we have secured important changes that will reduce the risk of innocent people being wrongly convicted.

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Peoples’ Vote – are we ready?

If there is a Peoples Vote it is not clear that Remain would win. For Remain to be guaranteed to win we would be much higher than 10% in the polls.

Our leaders need to understand what is driving people to support Brexit, and have some answers.

Campaigning in this Brexit Capital of the Midlands (Newcastle under Lyme), the reasons people want Brexit are obvious. Some of the reasons have an element of truth; others are totally false, fuelled by the Brexit Campaign and the tabloid press.

Some of the arguments they put forward that we must provide answers to …

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The case for Trades Unions

There has been for some time a substantial number of Liberal Democrats who think that Trades Unions are an anachronism. They are wrong.

In the neoliberal times in which we live, one of the main neoliberal aims is to weaken wage earners so that companies can force down wages, leaving lower wage earners poorer and at the mercy of unscrupulous employers. The result is zero hours contracts and poverty wages.

Trades Unions are a block to this neoliberal aim so, starting with Thatcher, they set about weakening unions and deterring people from joining them. …

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2 December 2018 – today’s press release

Gove admits final say may go to the people

Responding to comments from Michael Gove that a People’s Vote is possible, Liberal Democrat Brexit Spokesperson Tom Brake said:

The Government has made a Horlicks out of Brexit and now one of its chief architects has admitted that the final say might go back to the people.

Nobody voted for this bad deal.

Michael Gove is right. If Parliament rejects the deal, the Liberal Democrats and many others across the House will demand a People’s Vote with an option to remain in the EU.

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WATCH Jo Swinson talk about her Tech Commission

Here’s Jo Swinson talking about the first meeting of the Lib Dem Tech Commission which she hosted on Friday:

Here’s what she said in her article for this site:

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WATCH: Vince Cable’s message of solidarity with the Jewish community on Hanukkah

Here’s Vince’s message for Hanukkah:

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Why Delia could be the People’s Vote campaign’s most potent advocate

Three weeks on Tuesday, I’ll be preparing my family’s Christmas dinner, as I have done for the last three decades, by following the instructions in my battered and splattered copy of Delia Smith’s Christmas. You know, I bought the updated version a few years back, but it’s the old one I always reach for.

In a dark cupboard, as I write, it’s Delia’s Christmas cake that’s slowly maturing, helped along with the occasional injection of brandy, waiting for me to ice it on Christmas Eve.

We’ve started every New Year for decades with her Filet de Boeuf en Croute. In fact there was one year we didn’t and that was a bloody awful one. We won’t be doing that again.

You get my drift. Generations of cooks have grown up to instinctively trust Delia. Her recipes work and they’ve become engrained in many a family’s rituals.

So when she appears on the political programmes telling us that Brexit is a recipe for chaos and we should have a People’s Vote and choose to stay in, with the same passion as she’s enthused us into buying every cranberry or lime in the country in years gone by, we’re going to listen to her.

Here she was on the Andrew Marr Show this morning:

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Are you stressed out by Brexit?

A social media post by a friend of mine, citing Brexit-induced stress for lack of sleep made me realise this week that I feel the same way. Even if I don’t reach for my phone to check the headlines if I wake up in the middle of the night, the impending disaster facing the country is never far from my mind.

Then this morning an email arrives in our inbox telling us about Headspace’s new meditation packs for stressed out British people with one targeted at the almost three quarters of us who cite Brexit as something that is worrying them.

I’m not sure that a few moments’ meditation will help with the worry about what happens to our already crumbling public services if, as every forecast suggests, we will be worse off and we don’t have the people here to work in them.

I guess those of us who want to stay in the EU should be stressed. While the chance to get out of this mess has never been bigger, there’s a pretty tortuous process ahead over the next few weeks to get there. It’s a bit like the three dimensional chess they played on Star Trek: The Next Generation. When is the best time to play the People’s Vote card? In the Times on Friday, Matthew Parris said that Tory MPs should wait until after the deal has been defeated to come out for another vote and definitely shouldn’t do it now:

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Liberal Democrats should promote a better Advent

Has Britain ever had an Advent with less expectation of a happy arrival?

On December 11, general expectation is that Theresa May’s EU Withdrawal Bill will be defeated. Nobody can tell what will happen next. All that seems certain is that no political grouping will be completely satisfied. There can be no fulfilment of much-touted aims, only grudging compromise.

Besides, for Christians, the joy this year surely should be qualified. To be shopping extravagantly now and feasting lavishly then, for those who can afford it, doesn’t feel right when there are 420 Trussell Trust food banks supplying more than a million people each year, and food parcels will shortly be packed for the children of the poorest families.

It doesn’t feel right to rejoice, when the recent report of the UN rapporteur Phliip Alston has shown the extent of suffering among the 14 million British people living in poverty, with so much of the decline in their fortunes set in train by our Government.

Liberal Democrats have to promote the vital measures we have agreed and put forward to tackle these towering problems, much discussed in recent articles on this site. But what our country is also surely waiting for is the restoration, the second coming, of its rightful values.

Values which have been ignored by the Government, says Philip Alston, in considering the likely impact of Brexit on people in poverty as ‘an afterthought’; and in meantime overturning ‘key elements of the post-war Beveridge social contract’ by inflicting misery on the working poor, on single mothers, on people with disabilities, and on ‘millions of children who are being locked into a cycle of poverty from which most will have great difficulty escaping.’

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1 December 2018 – today’s absence of press releases

A day off from the media melee today so, as is my habit on such days, some music to take our minds off of the chaos around us.

Today, to reflect the G20 meeting in Buenos Aires, we take a short hop over the Andes to Santiago, for a live performance by Eva Ayllon and Inti Illimani Historico…

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Vince Cable’s message for World AIDS Day

Here is Vince Cable’s message for World AIDS Day.

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Some thoughts on the passing of a decent President

I’ll be honest, I was distraught when George H W Bush won the 1988 presidential election. I had so been hoping for an end to Republicans in the White House after 8 years of Reagan. I didn’t think his Vice President was going to be much of an improvement. I was annoyed that hard-hitting negative advertising combined with poor strategy and misjudgement of what constituted a good photo opportunity had cost Mike Dukakis.

Four years later, I stayed up all night watching the results, elated as Bill Clinton won a commanding victory. By that time, it wasn’t that I couldn’t stand Bush. In fact, I’d grown to respect his ability to form international alliances and show restraint and generally be a safe pair of hands at a time fo the most amazing global transformation. I was saddened how he had been pushed to the evangelical right by a bruising primary contest in a party which was then showing that it was capable of going to some very dark places.

Of course, as America’s economy suffered and people got poorer, he didn’t respond with the sort of social democrat policies that I would have liked. Then again, neither did Clinton. America just never has been in that place. I have never been able to understand why the provision of health care that’s free at the point of use by the state is such a controversial idea.

But Bush’s presidency had been a force for international good. I was glad that his Secretary of State James Baker was at least prepared to try to curb the excesses of the Israeli Government and to get people round the negotiating table, laying the groundwork for the Oslo Accord. 

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A masterclass for young people interested in politics

This caught our eye on Twitter. It looks like a fabulous opportunity for young people who are interested in politics to learn about political leadership skills.

There’s more information on the Patchwork website.

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30 November 2018 – today’s press releases

Just two today, perhaps a reflection of Parliament not sitting today…

Increase in fares an insult to passengers

Responding to the announcement of an average of 3.1% more for rail tickets from 2 January, Liberal Democrat Transport Spokesperson Baroness Jenny Randerson said:

Millions of people right across the country are paying over the odds for rail tickets despite not getting the service they pay for. It is frankly an insult to passengers to increase fares yet again.

Conservative Ministers have been conspicuously absent on this announcement, no doubt because they are aware the many problems with the rail network are a result of

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Jo Swinson MP writes…Lib Dem Tech Commission is ready and raring to go

Today I’m hosting the first meeting of the Liberal Democrats’ Tech Commission: an impressive mix of tech experts, academics and thinkers exploring the key challenges and opportunities of technology for our country 

We are at the height of a technological revolution that is transforming the world around us at a head-spinning pace. Advances in robotics and artificial intelligence are opening up possibilities that until recently were the realm of science fiction.

But, just as I am hopeful about the opportunities this latest revolution brings, I am also cautious about the problems and risks it will throw up, as I explained in my speech at our Brighton Conference earlier this year.  

This is why I decided to set up the Tech Commission. Over the last couple of months, I have been assembling a stellar line-up of experts to develop innovative policies for how the UK can be a global leader in new technologies and how we can ensure the benefits of these technologies are fairly shared across the country. 

Chairing the group will be Professor Sue Black OBE, a computer scientist who led the campaign to save Bletchley Park, the site of WW2 codebreakers. I am really looking forward to working with Sue, and I am so pleased she has agreed to lend us her knowledge and experience.   

The Commission will focus on three key questions:

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Wera Hobhouse MP writes…A step forward in fighting “sex for rent”

When I first came across the practice of ‘sex for rent’, I was appalled. Why do people end up in a truly awful and exploitative situation with a landlord which clearly should be against the law?

We know that sex for rent is a widespread problem. A YouGov poll says that 250,000 women in the UK had been offered reduced or free rent in exchange for sexual favours in the past five years. Yet as a crime it is under-reported and there are next to no prosecutions. 

It is already against the law to advertise sex for rent on pillar boxes or in the print media. One of the main problems has been that there are no clear legal guidelines to stop this vile practice for online advertising platforms.

Yesterday I received some good news. After I spent some time working in Parliament behind the scenes, the Crown Prosecution Service informed me that they will issue new guidelines in the new year ‘on sex for rent arrangements and advertising. There will be no distinction between off-line and online advertising’. It should then make it easier for the police and the courts to prosecute those who advertise online which has so far been a loophole.

And once we have some successful prosecutions then hopefully this should act as a deterrent for those who try and advertise for an arrangement that is cruel abusive and exploitative.

Most people see the work of an MP through the lens of a press story, or perhaps in 240 words on Twitter. I thought I’d share with you the steps I went through to achieve this change.

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William Wallace writes…A way to bring our national community together

I am a man of the people. You are part of the metropolitan liberal elite. They are enemies of the people, citizens of nowhere.

That’s the populist self-characterization that more and more right-wing politicians are now making. It’s an easy appeal to the ‘ordinary’ person against the sophisticated, over-educated and privileged. It works very well even when wielded by old Etonian Oxbridge graduates like Boris Johnson, or former city traders like Nigel Farage. The terms ‘elite’ and ‘establishment’ are elided, and blended with ‘liberal’, into a hostile image of people who claim superiority because of their expertise and knowledge, against those who prefer instinct and ‘common sense’.

There was a wonderful example of the genre in the Daily Telegraph of November 23rd, a letter under the headline “This ‘No Brexit deal’ by the political elite treats the majority who voted Leave with disdain” – signed by 15 Conservative peers, eight of them hereditary, three of them with peerages dating from the 17th century or earlier. If these are men of the people, I’m the king of Scotland. There was another in the Sun on Sunday, on November 25th, from Lord Digby Jones, one of the most self-important members of the House of Lords: ‘the British people – as if they needed further confirmation after what has gone on over the past few months – have been let down by the political class and the establishment elite.’ We should ridicule such claims whenever we see them.

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Observations of an ex pat: Kings of all trades

They know everything.  That is why they were elected to high office. President Trump is not only a high-flying real estate tycoon. He is also a top flight climatologist, superb firefighter, expert military strategist, brilliant constitutional lawyer, intelligence supremo, trade negotiator without equal and peerless economist.

Brexiteer Boris Johnson’s years as a scribe and Jacob Rees-Mogg’s banking experience have clearly made them detailed specialists on every aspect of British life likely to be touched by Brexit , which is—everything.

The knowledge of these men is truly staggering.  They could save British and American taxpayers hundreds of billions of pounds and dollars by dismissing great swathes of civil servants.  It is clear that that those highly paid “experts” at the Bank of England, British Treasury and the Office of National Statistics are at best ill-informed, stupid or just plain dumb. At worst they are “the enemy within” or “enemies of the people.”

As Prime Minister Theresa May continues her whistle-stop round Britain tour to sell her “best deal possible” Brexit plan,  civil servants have been lining up to point out the gaping pitfalls in her plan and the chasms if Britain goes for the no-deal alternative advocated by Jacob, Boris and co. Every single government department—and a number of independent think tanks—say that Britain will be worse off leaving the EU whichever route is taken. The no-deal plan would shrink the economy by 8-9 percent overnight, slash house prices by 30 percent, cost £100 billion, and collapse the pound by 25 percent.

All of these dire warnings from every quarter of every governmental department have been branded “Project Hysteria,” by the high priest of Brexit Jacob Rees-Mogg.  His acolytes at The Daily Express urged its readers to ignore their paid advisers as “they have been proven wrong time and again.”

Britain has one of the most competent civil services in the world. The world’s oldest civil service is Chinese. It started in the third century BC and became an object of admiration for the British from the 17th century onwards. In 1829 they decided to give it a go in India when the patronage system was replaced by a civil service examination. It was a resounding success and the system was adopted back in Britain in 1854. From there it made its way across the empire and beyond.

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Updated: Two strong holds for Lib Dems in by-elections and a GAIN

While Layla was putting in a storming performance on Question Time, her Oxfordshire colleagues were finishing off polling day in Wheatley ward. We were seeking to defend the seat we won by a whisker last year. Could Tim Bearder hold on?

Well, yes. By quite a lot.

It shows how well served the people in the ward have been by our Kirsten Johnson these past 18 months.

We also had a super hold in Aylesbury for Anders Christenson.

We can definitely forgive his Mum her moment of pride:

Typically, the gain happened after I went to bed…congratulations, Dominic Skinner.

And Christina Raven didn’t win, but she made a huge leap forward in Welwyn Hatfield. The Tories will be worried now.

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29 November 2018 – today’s press releases (the 500 miles edition)

Later than usual this evening, as I’ve spent the evening at a Proclaimers concert, courtesy of my lovely wife… it wasn’t 500 miles away…

  • PM leaving us in the dark on immigration
  • Cable: May “running scared” of real opposition
  • Lib Dems warn BBC that ‘Brexit debate’ may breach Ofcom code
  • Government has let down victims over second Leveson Inquiry

PM leaving us in the dark on immigration

Theresa May has today refused to confirm when the immigration white paper will be published. She was asked by Liberal Democrat MP Norman Lamb after Ministers originally promised to publish the white paper last year, but that deadline has …

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Brexit shambles descends into debate farce

You really couldn’t make up the state of British politics at the moment. The monstrous shambles that is Brexit is bad enough. A governing party riven by toxic split. An opposition that should be 20 points ahead in the polls but is excelling itself only in being more useless than the Government.

In recent days there has been talk of a tv debate between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn but even that can’t be sorted out. At the time of writing, Theresa May’s going to be on the BBC while Corbyn is cosying up to ITV, saying he wants it all over for the I’m a Celebrity final. I mean, really, the biggest substantive difference between the two is over which channel hosts the debate.

Certainly, if it ends up on the BBC, the trajectory of the evening will be markedly downward from Doctor Who to Strictly to the My Brexit’s bigger than Your Brexit despairathon.

It looks as though David Attenborough’s Dynasties will be booted to a later date. In a quiet but lovely corner of the internet, the wonderful Richard Flowers imagined the debate with an Attenborough voiceover:

Here… in the bleak midwinter… we see the skeletal remains of a Prime Minister being picked over by the vultures from her own Party, whilest a lst sheep in a loose collection of flappy organic rags bleats incoherant mantras about a Jobs First Bexit… And all about them, the country dies…

Vince, Nicola Sturgeon and the People’s Vote campaign are all rightly narked that they are being left out. I mean, after all, why wouldn’t they want to show an alternative opinion that might bring in more viewers?

This evening, Sal Brinton and Nick Harvey have written to BBC Chairman Lord Hall to suggest that the debate as currently planned might breach Ofcom rules. I’m not sure about that, because there’s no actual election, but the party is seeing legal advice. Here’s the text of their letter. 

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Norman Lamb explains why he is voting against the Brexit deal

Lib Dem MP Norman Lamb has explained why he will be voting against the Brexit deal on his Facebook page.

He abstained on the vote to trigger Article 50 after promising his heavily Leave voting constituency that he would not block it.

He can’t vote for the withdrawal agreement, though, because it means further uncertainty.

I was determined to take time to consider Theresa May’s Brexit deal, rather than rushing to a judgement. We all have a responsibility to make the best judgement in the national interest.

Frustratingly, I do not think this deal resolves anything. We face years of further turmoil with fraught argument over our future relationship. Today I questioned the PM on immigration and on the impact on science. Nothing is resolved. Everything is up in the air. Uncertainty for the science community will be really damaging.

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Let’s cheer on Layla on Question Time tonight

Question Time will actually be worth watching tonight as our Layla Moran makes her debut on the show.

She will be on the panel in Penzance with Conservative MP Nadim Zahawi, Labour’s Rebecca Long Bailey, Professor Benjamin Zephaniah and Tim Martin, the founder of Wetherspoons, a chain few self-respecting remainers will be seen in these days.

We know Layla is brilliant at these things because she has always rocked on Any Questions with openness, honesty and strong arguments.

Lib Dems have been rarer than hen’s teeth on these big programmes – absent from …

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LibLink: Miriam blasts Cameron and May

Over on theGuardian’s “Comment is free” website, Miriam Gonzalez Durantez very powerfully berates David Cameron for his arrogance in calling the EU referendum. Then she lays into Theresa May for her “citizens of nowhere” and “queue jumpers” remarks.

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Medical MDMA: Radical but reasonable

Recently, British regulators and lawmakers have started to acknowledge the health benefits of certain, previously banned, substances. Cannabidiol (one of the chemical constituents of cannabis but with virtually all of the stuff that gets you high – THC – removed) has been legal since 2017. As of the first of this month, doctors have been able to prescribe cannabis-based products for medical use.

These are moves in the right direction. Cannabidiol has been shown to have anti-anxiety, anti-inflammatory and anti-pain benefits. As the evidence currently stands, it seems to have less harmful side effects than many of the medicines already used to treat such problems (e.g mainstream anti-depressants and opiates).

Other, currently illegal drugs have started to show promise too – especially for helping people with mental health problems. Small doses of LSD and magic mushrooms appear to have very much the same effect as antidepressants, but with fewer side effects.

I’ve seen the drugs-related discussion in the Liberal Democrats largely centre on principles of bodily autonomy and whether the government has much business in policing what adults can choose to do with their time, money and bodies.

But in doing this we overlook a much more important reason to support the legislation and regulation of certain types of drugs. As a party serious about mental health and serious about evidence-based policy we should be at the forefront of the case for the medical applications of ecstasy and magic mushrooms. At the very least we should be pushing for more research into the effects.

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Recent Comments

  • Judy Abel
    @Nigel agree with all of this - your last paragraph says it all - things have to change and the Lib Dems could start to be that change....
  • nigel hunter
    A few comments ---The 'Middle England ' scenario is so OLD.The country is changing and that way keeps the status quo, when people are restless for change, wher...
  • Judy Abel
    Thank you for all your comments - we had a good debate!...
  • nigel hunter
    You are correct re talking to the young or rather NOT talking enough to them.THEY. They are the future electorate AND possible recruits .MORE effort must be put...
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    @Tristan - hedge funds running children’s social care - badly - never mind the children? - (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/02/profiteering-o...