Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #506

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 11th February 2018 - 9:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 506th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere … Featuring the five most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (4-10 February, 2018), together with a hand-picked seven you might otherwise have missed.

Don’t forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.

As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:

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The Voice

Vince on the Government’s “Road to Brexit” plans

By The Voice | Sun 11th February 2018 - 1:00 pm

Vince summed up in a tweet what many people are thinking about the Government’s Brexit plans and yet another attempt to show that they actually know what they are doing.

Please someone make that a cartoon.

He also had this to say on the comments by Anna Soubry and Chukka Umunna on the Andrew Marr Show that MPs could vote down a Brexit deal that wasn’t good for the country.

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Caron Lindsay

It’s not just the ridiculous and ignorant mistakes made in PIP and ESA assessments that should worry us

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 11th February 2018 - 11:00 am

You judge whether a society is civilised or not by how it treats its most vulnerable people.  The Work and Pensions Select Committee will publish a report this week which has recommendations for the reform of social security for sick and disabled people.

If one of your relatives suffered from a debilitating, life limiting physical or mental health condition, you would want them to have the best support possible. You wouldn’t want them to have to endure a social security system that is complex, demeaning and stressful.

As a prelude to their full report, the Work and Pensions Committee published a taster of the evidence they have received which outlines the awful things that people go through.

For me, it wasn’t the absurd and ridiculous incidents that caught the headlines (people being asked why they hadn’t killed themselves yet, or how they caught Down’s Syndrome) that upset me the most. It was the clear evidence that the way the system operates is harmful to people that made me angriest.

To be fair, none of this was news to me. I’ve been aware for some time that the system is broken. It particularly fails those with fluctuating conditions, Autism and poor mental health, but it’s stressful for everybody.

Filling in the massive form is particularly difficult. For some, it is even more so. I spoke at an RNIB Scotland fringe meeting at Scottish Conference about a year ago, The RNIB Scotland Chair, Sandra Wilson, talked about her experience of the dreaded form. She has no sight. They sent her a paper copy and expected her to fill it in. They knew she had no sight when they sent her the form.

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Kishan Devani

Implementing Alderdice’s recommendations will make the Liberal Democrats stronger

By Kishan Devani | Sun 11th February 2018 - 8:55 am

Having joined the Liberal Democrats only around 8 weeks ago it was heartening to see that various recommendations & thoughts I expressed to Lord Alderdice in December were included in his comprehensive report. John’s enthusiasm and will to drive change with Baroness Brinton’s vision of change can be felt throughout this report.

For myself personally, it was incredibly positive to see a party that is truly looking to engage with the BAME communities. Having been the Deputy Chairman of the London Conservative Party, stood for Parliament & the GLA for them, I had almost given up hope on political parties wanting to truly engage with the needs of minority communities in the UK. However this report is the beginning of a movement which each and every one of us in our party can be a part of, and we as Liberal Democrats can be the champions of this for years to come. It makes me proud that I left the Conservatives for a party that is progressive and that wants to deal with issues head on and tackle inequality of all kinds. In order to attract the wider BAME communities to the Lib Dems practical tips such as

  • Ensuring that your local party group makes and implements a plan for engaging with race and ethnic minority communities in your area.
  • If you want to bring in young people from communities, don’t expect older community leaders to be the most suitable magnets.
  • Everyone has a contribution to make in engaging BAME communities and individuals at all levels.

have been outlined in the report. These need to be studied and examined within all of our constituency associations in order to truly build on this report and allow for its various facets to be implemented.

In addition to this i was extremely pleased my suggestion to Lord Alderdice in regards to adopting the role of Vice Chairman of the Liberal Democrat Party for BAME Communities – has been included. John understood the necessity of such a role to allow us to connect to communities all over the UK. A Vice Chair for BAME Communities would allow us as a party to engage with grassroots of various communities and give those psrticular communities a particular individual as a port of call for them to engage with. This would enable the diverse communities to build.a rapport with our party via a particular assigned individual. So when communities would like to raise issues, concerns or suggestions they have a particular person they can approach and seek assistance from. In addition, this would also allow our many local diversity champions across the country to work together more coherantly, as the Vice Chair would be someone they can approach to reach out to their various diverse communities locally. It would also assist them to share good practice, such as what is going on in Kingston, Richmond, Twickenham, Tower Hamlets, Haringey, Hackney & Sutton just to mention some. By sharing this good practice via one particular individual you are able to give it structure and allow our diversity champions to feel comfortable and guided in their somewhat current ambiguous & difficult roles.

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The Voice

WATCH: Vince’s Q and A at Launchpad North

By The Voice | Sat 10th February 2018 - 3:52 pm

Those nice people at Your Liberal Britain put on Launchpad North in Sheffield today. Billed as an event for party members to share policy ideas and have campaign training, it was well attended and had some VIP visitors.

Here is Vince Cable’s Q & A:

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Caron Lindsay

Can you help elect April in May?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 10th February 2018 - 1:34 pm

Two years ago, former Manchester Withington Lib Dem MP was elected as a Councillor in Manchester. Since then he has valiantly provided the only opposition to the under-achieving Labour Council. Seriously, this lot are as good an argument for PR as you are ever going to find.  They have a huge sense of entitlement to power and they really don’t like opposition which John has been providing in generous and disproportionate amounts. 

John is great but it would be amazing if he could have some support in the Council chamber.

Standing in the Withington ward this May are April Preston and Alex Warren. April is amazing and no stranger to challenging things that just aren’t right. She crowdfunded the money to pay for one of the best fringe meetings I’d ever been to at a Federal Conference on feminism in York two years ago.

The Withington team has set up a crowdfunder for their campaign and it’s raised £500 in just a few days. They say:

Withington Ward Liberal Democrats will strive to put community back into the Council and with your help we will be able to challenge officials that neglect our beloved city.

Our candidates in this year’s elections are: April Preston, and Alex Warren.

April Preston was the first spokesperson for Stockport Young Carers and has been passionate activist from the age of 10 and continues to campaign on a wide on a wide range of issues from mental health to children leaving care. April is also a is a trustee of Autistic Association of Greater Manchester, she has campaigned to repeal Section 28, and against the Iraq war. April has also argued against the council’s treatment of our homeless and chaired events fighting for a more diverse and tolerant society.

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Land Value Tax – Where are we as a party?

By Joe Bourke | Sat 10th February 2018 - 11:30 am

ALTER will address this question in our conference fringe at Southport next month to be held on Friday, 9th March at the Ramada Plaza, from 20:15 to 21:30 in the Promenade room.

Leading the discussion will be two LVT experts and experienced Liberal Democrat campaigners – Michael Meadowcroft and Tony Vickers.

All mainstream parties are now beginning to address the Land problem in the context of an ever worsening housing crisis. The Chancellor announced a raft of measures in the last budget including the Letwin review that is to be informed by a number of consultations.

Among these consultations, the Communities and Local Government Committee (CLG) are conducting an inquiry into the effectiveness of current land value capture methods and the need for new ways of capturing any uplift in the value of land associated with the granting of planning permission or nearby infrastructure improvements and other factors . ALTER’s submission will argue that attempts to capture uplifts in land values by one-off levies have largely been unsuccessful and that an alternative is to go for annual levies as with a site value rating.

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged | 90 Comments
Paul Walter

LibLink: Nick Clegg – British cross-border supply chains will be strangled by hard Brexit red tape

By Paul Walter | Sat 10th February 2018 - 9:47 am

Embed from Getty Images

Writing in the i newspaper, Nick Clegg says that any chance of Soft Brexit has been killed off by Theresa May. Instead, MPs will be faced with the choice of a hard Brexit or no Brexit.

Nick Clegg hits the nail on the head when he describes how modern cross-border supply chains will be destroyed by a hard Brexit:

It cannot be said enough: the Brexit this Government is determined to impose on this country cannot under any circumstances avoid the introduction of extensive new barriers, costs and frictions to trade with our largest trading partners.

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Jonathan Marks

Jonathan Marks writes…muddled thinking over the EAW threatens our security

By Jonathan Marks | Fri 9th February 2018 - 5:00 pm

Yesterday in the House of Lords we discussed a report from the European Union Committee entitled ‘Brexit: Judicial Oversight of the European Arrest Warrant’. I regard this as a warm-up to the debates we will be having over the course of the Withdrawal Bill when we return from recess.

I rose to agree with the Prime Minister. Well, when she was Home Secretary in 2014 she recognised that losing the European arrest warrant would turn the UK into “a honeypot for all Europe’s criminals on the run from justice”. It seems that in the intervening period she has suffered some sort of memory loss and is now toying with the idea of pulling out of all of the most important crime-fighting tools we have with our European partners.

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Ben Andrew

There’s no hypocrisy in putting grid girls out of work

By Ben Andrew | Fri 9th February 2018 - 3:04 pm

Formula 1 recently announced that they would no longer have scantily clad women acting as “grid girls” during races. This seems like a no-brainer to me, but there has been a wave of backlash against the decision. The main argument against it appears to be this:

These women have chosen to use their looks to make money, which is their free choice. And now pressure from a bunch of angry feminists has made them lose their jobs. So much for respecting women’s choices. 

Variations of this argument have recently appeared in the Mail, Mirror, Metro and Times.

And it is a terrible argument.

It wrongly assumes that feminists must support a woman’s right to be paraded for her looks on whatever platform she chooses.

But this just isn’t true. Imagine if Prime Ministers Questions decided that, to raise their viewership, a woman would introduce proceedings every week in her underwear. That would be absurd, whether it gave a job to a young woman or not. People don’t have a god-given right to dress in a sexualised way to advertise a brand. Feminists aren’t hypocrites if they don’t support giving people such a platform.

When brands like Formula One promote Grid Girls in the way that they do, it has damaging effects on other women and on society. It implies that women should be seen as decoration – only relevant for their looks – while the male drivers are heralded for their sporting ability. What kind of message does that send to young girls who see them on TV? This isn’t the same as being anti-sex, or saying that women shouldn’t be able to dress how they like in their everyday lives. It’s about context. Why should there be a platform for parading half-naked women during a race? How is that relevant to sport? 

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Gordon Lishman

Southport and strategy

By Gordon Lishman | Fri 9th February 2018 - 1:30 pm

This is my personal view about the Southport Conference Strategy motion – what’s good and what can be improved.

There are four big ideas:

  1. A dual approach to politics. We are an insurgent party In our hearts and minds – we want to use political power for change and reform through government and by working with people to help them to take and use power over the forces that affect their lives. It means practical campaigns for our values, fighting the forces that diminish people’s lives and making modern liberalism into a political and social movement.  We should win campaigns NOW on local, national and international issues, working with people in other parties and outside conventional politics.  Our members should be on the streets, into social media and telephoning to win campaigns not just votes. Votes will follow successful campaigns; if they appear to be our main or only purpose, we’ll fail to win hearts and mind for liberalism, fail to win a mandate for radical change and fail to win big elections.
  1. A re-statement of the big ideas that define our core campaign themes: the open society, tolerant, pluralist and internationalist; a fair economy which challenges inequality; and helping people to take back control. We want a strong society, a fair economy, and communities where people find themselves as confident, powerful individuals.

These campaigns resonate with communities throughout the UK . We are not defined by Brexit, although we have important things to say to people on both sides. We have strong messages for people “left-behind” by globalisation and for everyone who wants more control over their lives. We are an inclusive Party, hearing and responding to the pain of many who feel that the EU doesn’t help them, and explaining why open, tolerant, internationalist society works best.

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Paul Walter

Vintage election nights: the time a painter had to come on screen to extend the Swingometer

By Paul Walter | Fri 9th February 2018 - 11:55 am

I have always remembered the classic moment when, during the BBC general election night TV coverage of 1970, a painter had to be brought on to extend the swingometer. This was because the Conservative swings were unexpectedly high, and the swingometer didn’t go far enough to cover some of them.

In these days of high tech, it is difficult to believe that such a thing happened. Indeed, as I have recalled the incident over the years, I don’t think many people have believed me.

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Posted in General Election and TV and film | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
Katharine Pindar

What should we do about Labour?

By Katharine Pindar | Fri 9th February 2018 - 10:25 am

We need to talk about our relations with the Labour Party. Are they essentially still the centralised, top-down, union-led anti-capitalist party of the past, or are they sufficiently on our wavelength now for us to work with them against the baleful effects of austerity? Should we minimise opposition to them in strong Labour constituencies and regard them as likely future Coalition partners?

Perhaps in this country now equality as an ideal should trump freedom, and in practice the need to fight gross inequality and strive for social justice may demand our party working with Labour for similar ends.

Yet if the price is accepting Socialism, Liberal Democrats can’t go there. As well as having a different economic approach, we have a different outlook. We want an open, outward-looking, tolerant society where individuals count, not one focussed on class divisions and workers versus bosses. So Liberal Democrats welcome the EU as a co-operative enterprise while Labour leaders are suspicious of it as a capitalist club. Labour’s approach to Brexit is closer to the Government’s than to ours, so how could we be allies?

However, look at the demands Labour made of the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, in the lead up to his autumn Budget. They were:

  1. Pause and fix Universal Credit.
  2. Provide new funding to lift the public sector pay cap.
  3. Spend on infrastructure to boost the economy and create good jobs.
  4. Have properly-funded public services including health, education and local government.
  5. Launch a large-scale public housebuilding programme.

What’s not to like in that, considering how much it fits with our own proposals?

But the Labour General Election manifesto last June had been very different from ours. Its radical demands such as ending student tuition fees and nationalising water and energy companies and the rail services had an instant appeal that brought voters flocking in. Acute analysis indeed showed major flaws. Their package would have meant an economic cut in welfare for the poor, saving funds which would be directed to services for the middle classes. While our own manifesto sought reversal of £9 billion-worth of the 2015 and earlier welfare cuts, Labour allocated only £4 billion to this. We were much more oriented towards the poorest, in a well-costed progressive manifesto. Thoughtful voters may have grasped that; unfortunately it is unlikely to have been widely understood. 

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Tom Arms

Observation of an ex pat: Money scales

By Tom Arms | Fri 9th February 2018 - 8:55 am

Global economics is a balancing act.

If one side of the scales moves up, the other side goes down.

This truism was well-demonstrated by the recent volatility in the world’s stock markets.

Only a few weeks ago the IMF forecast the best year for economic growth in ten years—3.9 percent.

Two weeks later world stock markets plunged. They recovered but left a crowd of nervous investors in their wake.  The markets are concerned with profits and it is one of life;s economic ironies that growth can hit profits.

The drop started in New York. This is logical because an unpredictable president should lead to a volatile market. Donald Trump’s economic policies have in the short term, at least, been a success. American unemployment is now down to 4.1 percent. And growth is up to 2.6 percent.

Full employment is reckoned to be 5 percent of the labour market. Below that and economists reckon you need to import workers in order to maintain growth. Trump’s immigration policies are doing the opposite. If the country’s does not import workers than the law of supply and demand will push up wages, which is exactly what is happening.

Higher wages means higher corporate costs which means less profits which is reflected in the share prices.

This is why when the markets opened in Asia they plunged even further and faster—five percent down compared to  4.8 percent in the US. Unemployment in Japan is 2.8 percent, China 3.1 percent and South Korea 3.3 percent.

It also helps to explain why the European markets dropped less than 2 percent later in the day. Unemployment in the Eurozone is 8.7 percent.

There were some other items that caused the scales to tip. Wage inflation fuels general inflation which the central banks usually correct by increasing interest rates. These have been at record lows. In Japan investors in treasury bonds receive only 0.07 percent  interest.  All the central banks have said rates are going up.

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Caron Lindsay

What will you do to make sure the party is welcoming to BAME people?

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 8th February 2018 - 8:25 pm

Party members have been emailed by Vince Cable tonight. He asks all of us to play our part in ensuring that the Liberal Democrats are open and welcoming to BAME people.

Members are asked to read John Alderdice’s report on race, ethnic minorities and the culture of the Liberal Democrats. He was asked to identify any barriers to BAME participation in the party and if there were, what should we do about them.

He concludes that there are barriers, not stemming from malevolence but sometimes just not getting it and that the party needs to get its act together. All the processes in the world won’t help unless we are all committed to ensuring that our culture is as open and welcoming as it can be.

He recommends establishing a Campaign for BAME Representation that runs along the same lines as the successful Campaign for Gender Balance.

In a piece on the Lib Dem website, he asks us to consider what we can do to bring about that essential cultural change:

This is about who we are as Liberal Democrats, and whether we practice what we preach. We can start changing our party’s culture by taking some of these simple actions:

  • Start to read, think and talk with others about this issue and about what you can do.

  • If any BaME person comes to a local meeting, make a point to go and talk to them: make them feel welcomed and develop a relationship with them.

  • Is the range of events you hold sufficiently sensitive to the culture and beliefs of different communities – the ‘Lib Dem Pint’ isn’t very accessible for people who don’t drink, for example.

  • Ensure that your local party group makes and implements a plan for engaging with race and ethnic minority communities in your area.

  • Think about your local campaigning priorities and materials: do they address the interests and concerns of BAME communities in your area?

  • If you want to bring in young people from communities, don’t expect older community leaders to be the most suitable magnets.

  • Everyone has a contribution to make in engaging BAME communities and individuals at all levels.

  • Study the options suggested in the report as a stimulus for you developing your own ideas for changing the culture of the Party.

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Caron Lindsay

Why it’s time to follow Jo’s lead in tackling sexist behaviour

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 8th February 2018 - 6:15 pm

When John Humphrys and Jon Sopel mocked the whole BBC gender pay gap controversy in the wake of Carrie Gracie’s resignation last month, they weren’t really held to account. There was no great show of remorse from them. The BBC could have taken them off air for a couple of days to underline that they were unimpressed with their behaviour. They and their sense of entitlement were pretty much left untouched.

Until today.

Jo Swinson was interviewed by John Humphrys about the new procedures to tackle sexual harassment and bullying in Parliament. At the end of the interview, this happened:

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David Thorpe

What the Lib Dems can learn about economics from Donald Trump

By David Thorpe | Thu 8th February 2018 - 5:05 pm

https://www.flickr.com/photos/wwarby/4860335535/in/photolist-8puuqx-nH9KhK-x5gkW-a2Yx4D-8putCp-a32qpS-a2YbjP-9kJJvt-7b8177-8puprR-6SKbQG-6SKbZG-oKCWvp-dkaUyr-v2EDLi-r1tFvY-r1tFHm-9kNUaq-4Mph7K-ChcB23-8puqfH-8pxBCE-8pxDRo-9kJHqK-aWwhx4-9VBBzN-5WEQZB-a2Ybz8-9kJLQR-9kP8co-4icUAV-9kMMvL-9kMSBb-9kMNwd-bYafLo-8purhr-9kKZfe-nzKQ2n-yNYtG-8pup2p-8purRn-hKv96Z-8pupSi-8pust2-bZPiEm-9kP7hq-a32p7J-8upwDg-5MSyss-9kMKy9Not least among my irritating habits is that I often take the opposite side of the argument to whatever the consensus is at any one time, not because I necessarily believe it, but rather to test my knowledge of my own point of view.

But there are times when even my ability to agitate for an unpopular cause runs aground. Donald Trump’s presidency is one where the well of mischief runs dry.

But there is a lesson for liberals in Mr Trump’s economic policies, as his actions reveal the failings of trickle-down economics …

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Kirsten Johnson

Building on our green credentials

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 8th February 2018 - 1:30 pm

We are the party who introduced the 5p charge for plastic bags and set up the Green Investment Bank. We led the way on investment in renewables and in green technologies. So what’s next?

Party members would have received a recent newsletter with a link to the party’s vision on how we can save our seas from plastic pollution.

We are calling for the government to commit to a Plastic-Free Charter.

We need to tackle our throw-away culture by providing incentives to reduce, reuse and recycle.

I couldn’t agree more.

Aberporth, in West Wales,

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Antony Hook

Gender equality… how becoming a councillor has changed my perspective

By Antony Hook | Thu 8th February 2018 - 12:45 pm

I am a feminist.

I have called myself that since the mid-2000s and by that term I simply mean that men and women deserve equality. To be valued equally and to have equal opportunity to make the most of our lives.

I have worked for the election of female parliamentarians.  I was part of the team that secured Sharon Bowles’ re-election and Catherine Bearder’s election for the first time in the 2009 European Elections. Five years later, I was Catherine Bearder’s running mate (Sharon having decided not to stand again) and I chaired the regional campaign.  We raised about £250,000 and honed …

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The Voice

Sal Brinton talks of being stuck in House of Lords as peer refused to move to let her past

By The Voice | Thu 8th February 2018 - 10:21 am

The House of Lords debated the proposed works to the Palace of Westminster this week.

Sal Brinton took advantage of the opportunity to make a plea for the refurbished Parliament to be properly accessible. She highlighted some of the ways in which the current set-up fails disabled people. She also spoke of an experience where one peer wouldn’t actually let her past to leave a Lords debate, making her late for a meeting.

My Lords, in the wonderful elegance of parliamentary language, we have talked much already about “patch and mend”. The restoration and renewal of the buildings and the facilities in the Palace of Westminster are vital and urgent and I believe that we need to use much franker language given the neglect of the past. I support the Motion and oppose the amendment. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, that 20 years ago I was bursar of Selwyn College, Cambridge, when we needed to renew and restore our main court that had seen little—frankly, virtually no—maintenance and progress since it was built a century before. Student rooms still had gas and electric fires and the electric cabling was on its last legs, with much of the urgent work not visible or easily accessible. Does this sound familiar?

Since Selwyn was the poorest college and had very little resource to invest over the years in the buildings, the “patch and mend” approach was clearly failing us. We knew we had to do the work in one go, no matter how disruptive it was. We were also clear that we had to ensure it did not happen again, and that maintenance must be built into the future life of the buildings. This is also true for the Palace of Westminster after this major work. What steps are being taken to ensure that detailed maintenance costs of the building, and not just the ordinary life of the building, are being built into the baseline budget and then ring-fenced? The future of this historic and important building is just too important to get wrong.

When my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester, who cannot be in her place today but I hope will soon be able to rejoin us, gave evidence to the Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster, she spoke for many of us who face accessibility issues in the Palace. I am grateful that the Joint Committee has taken the evidence on accessibility from a number of people, but I seek reassurance that there really will be a step change under the full decant option. It is not a “nice to have” option, and now is the best time to do the core work. So I am pleased to see in paragraph 7 of the Motion that there will be,

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Caron Lindsay

Layla and Ed try to change laws on homelessness

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 8th February 2018 - 8:44 am

I was so incredibly proud of two of our Lib Dem MPs yesterday.

First, Layla Moran stood up at PMQs and asked Theresa May to abolish the “archaic, dickensian and cruel” Vagrancy Act which criminalises rough sleeping, adding another layer of indignity to an already horrific situation for vulnerable people.

Here’s the exchange in full:

Under the Vagrancy Act 1824, rough sleeping is illegal. The Act was used nearly 2,000 times last year to drag homeless people before the courts. Scotland and Northern Ireland have already repealed it, so will the Prime Minister support my Bill to consign this heartless, Dickensian law to the history books across the whole United Kingdom?

The Prime Minister

We recognise that we need to take action in relation to rough sleeping, which is why we are putting more money into projects to reduce rough sleeping. That includes projects such as Housing First, which are being established in a number of places to ensure that we can provide for those who are rough sleeping. None of us wants to see anybody rough sleeping on our streets, which is why the Government are taking action.

This is even more important given that the cuts to social security have torn such massive holes in the safety net that homelessness is on the increase.

Layla also introduced a Bill to repeal the Vagrancy Act. Here she is talking about it.

And a couple of hours later, with a speech that packed a real punch, Ed Davey introduced a Bill which aims to give homeless people access to housing and end of life care if they are terminally ill. Yes, that’s right, they don’t actually have it already.

It is bad enough being homeless, but imagine having a terminal illness like Cancer. How on earth are you going to have a chance of managing the pain if you have nowhere to live? Anyone who has ever nursed someone through an illness like that will know how valuable that end of life care is at keeping people as comfortable as possible in their final weeks and days.

How would you like someone you love to end up in those circumstances?

Here’s Ed’s speech in full. It made me sad and angry to think that we live in a country where this isn’t already happening.

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The Voice

Brexit starts to look very, very scary

By The Voice | Wed 7th February 2018 - 9:56 pm

Leave voting areas of the UK are amongst the worst hit in the Government’s own analysis of the impact of Brexit.

Staying in the single market, which the Government refuses to do, would see a 3% fall in GDP in the North East. That is best case scenario. If we crash out with no deal, that hard-hit area of the country stands to lose 16% of GDP.

Similarly in the West Midlands, no deal amounts to a 13% fall in GDP.

Here’s the full analysis:

Tom Brake said:

This is a damning outlook for Britain. The Tories are putting everything on the line because they do not care about the lives and livelihoods of the people of the UK.

The government need to start being clear what they are fighting for. They are still keeping no deal on the table despite how crippling it would be to the regional economy.

People did not vote to make themselves poorer.  They should be allowed a vote on the final deal and a chance to exit from Brexit.

Willie Rennie looked at the impact on Scotland and across the UK and accused the Conservatives of putting the public in the firing line;

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Caron Lindsay

Clever question from Vince shows Brexit threat to NHS

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 7th February 2018 - 8:03 pm

Theresa May’s non-answer to Vince Cable’s question at PMQs today about whether a future trade deal with the US will safeguard the NHS could end up as being one of the turning points of the Brexit debate.

One of the huge advantages of the EU is that you have a lot more clout if you approach a protectionist like Trump with 27 of your mates rather than if you show up on your own.

Watch the exchange here:

The text is below:

Sir Vince Cable

The Prime Minister knows that one of the key objectives of American trade negotiators in any future deal after Brexit is to secure access for American companies to do business in the NHS. Will she give an absolute guarantee that the NHS will be excluded from the scope of those negotiations? Will she also confirm that she has made it absolutely clear to President Trump in her conversations with him that the NHS is not for sale?

The Prime Minister

We are starting the discussions with the American Administration, first of all looking at what we can already do to increase trade between the US and the United Kingdom—even before the possibility of any free trade agreement. The right hon. Gentleman does not know what the American Administration are going to say about their requirements for that free trade agreement. We will go into those negotiations to get the best possible deal for the United Kingdom.

The BBC’s Norman Smith felt that this would not be the end of the matter.

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Michael Berwick-Gooding

Can we afford a Universal Basic Income?

By Michael Berwick-Gooding | Wed 7th February 2018 - 2:55 pm

In the last few years there have been a number of reports which consider the introduction of a Citizens’ Income and how it can be funded. Towards the end of last year I came across the Compass report – “Universal Basic Income: An idea whose time has come?” written by Howard Reed and Stewart Lansley (and partly funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation).

Howard Reed and Stewart Lansley in the Compass report set out two schemes for a Citizens’ Income, both of which keep the existing means-tested benefits, the existing State Pension, replaces Child Benefit and increases the higher National Insurance rate to 12% and abolishes the Income Tax Personal Allowance. Their scheme 1 gives children a Citizens Income of £49 per week, adults under 25 £51, adults over 25 £61 and pensioners an extra £41. It also increases all Income Tax rates by 3%. Their scheme 2 increases the Citizens Income rates by £10 and all Income Tax rates by a further 2%.

The RSA report “Creative citizen, creative state: the principles and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income” written by Anthony Painter and Chris Thoungpointed out that there were big tax cuts in 2015-16 totally £19.5 billion (including £8 billion to increase the Income Tax Personal Allowance to £10,600) so we should not be too concerned about having a shortfall in funding as the Citizens Income Trust might have of over £10 billion. 

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Mark Pack

Towards a party strategy

By Mark Pack | Wed 7th February 2018 - 1:30 pm

Optimists and pessimists alike can find plenty to feed on about the current state of the Liberal Democrats. Dramatic council by-election gains. Stuck in single figures in the opinion polls almost constantly for over seven years, with our best monthly average only 11%. A massive growth in party membership taking us to all-time record levels. A local council base that has been shrinking steadily since the peak of 22.3% of councillors being Lib Dem in 1996. A distinctive position on the big policy issue of our times, providing plenty of political space for the party.

The list could go on. What even this short sample shows is that the Liberal Democrats have huge potential, the need for us to successfully argue the liberal and democratic position has never been greater and yet we’ve not yet found a way to turn that into sustained success.

It’s a challenge to us all to work out how we can raise our game, be smarter in what we do, raise more money and involve more people.

Which is where the strategy motion coming up at Southport conference comes in. Any party member who can make it to conference has the chance to debate and vote on it. It’s not a strategy from on high, but one based on widespread consultation with members last year, including two all-member surveys and on which members get the final say.

It is also, quite deliberately, a strategy. It is not a manifesto, a vision statement or an HQ business plan. It is not the one magic document that contains all the solutions for what the party needs to do. We will also need, for example, great manifestos for future devolved and Westminster general elections. So don’t expect to find the answers to everything in the strategy motion – it is (just) our propose strategy.

It is also, as any good strategy should be, a deliberate choice of priorities. There are plenty of things that could be in it which aren’t. That is because to prioritise everything is to prioritise nothing. You will, I suspect, have some things you’d love to see in the list of organisational priorities which aren’t there. I can certainly think of some I’m tempted to add. But even in an organisation overflowing with money, staff and volunteers, let alone in the reality of the Liberal Democrats, you need to prioritise to make meaningful progress.

So what the proposed strategy does instead is to set out a clear political approach for us – one which combines the mutually supporting aims of electoral success with the broader challenge of making our society and political system more liberal – and then sets out what sort of organisation we need to achieve that and how to get there.

If we get that right, we can rise to the challenge that the news brings us almost daily and turn far more of what we believe should happen into political change that makes our country more liberal, more green and more successful.

The text of the motion is below:

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Jo Swinson MP

Jo Swinson MP writes…Wringing our hands or shrugging our shoulders isn’t enough to fight discrimination

By Jo Swinson MP | Wed 7th February 2018 - 11:55 am

Editor’s Note: Out this month is Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson’s book Equal Power. Here she writes about the battle for equality and you can get her new book yourself from Amazon, Hive or The Guardian bookshop.

With rampant sexual harassment at a corporate charity dinner, the BBC accused of breaking equal pay law, and Easyjet’s new male CEO admitting he was offered £34,000 more to do the same job as his female predecessor, you don’t need to look far to find gender inequality in the news. And that’s just stories from one week.

When I was the Liberal Democrat Minister for Women, I learned that many seemingly different issues – the gender pay gap, violence against women, workplace discrimination, body image, division of caring responsibilities, gender stereotypes, women’s under-representation in politics – are all different parts of the same fiendishly difficult jigsaw. Tackling the problem of gender inequality means chipping away at all of these issues simultaneously because together they reinforce the entrenched power imbalance between men and women.

The backlash in the letters page of the Financial Times last week showed what we’re up against, as writers bemoaned the FT even covering the issue of sexual harassment, and referred to the women groped in their workplace as “silly young girls”. When I spoke out on television – albeit colourfully – against the everyday sexism and misogyny that sees schoolgirls sexually harassed, I was called a “little missy”.

It should be a core mission for us as liberals to challenge concentrations of power, including the power hoarded in the hands of rich, white men.

Gendered assumptions are everywhere. While women bear the brunt of these injustices, rigid cultural expectations about gender also harm men, not least in terms of their mental health. Men are also undervalued in their role as fathers, something I started trying to change with the introduction of shared parental leave.

Our party is not immune to the sexism that permeates through every part of society, but we can all act – individually and collectively – to be part of the solution. We need to recognise the nature of the problem: it is structural and ingrained in each and every one of us, absorbed from the surrounding culture. Changing it takes constant attention and proactive effort. Wringing our hands or shrugging our shoulders when few women ‘come forward’ won’t cut it for our party in 2018.

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The Voice

Floella Benjamin on trouser suits, pioneering pregnancy at work and fighting for gender and race equality

By The Voice | Wed 7th February 2018 - 10:25 am

As recently as 1981, Floella Benjamin was a trailblazer at the BBC. It wasn’t the done thing to be pregnant and be a tv presenter. She did it. In a fascinating speech in the Lords on Monday, she talked about her life and various careers and campaigns. I actually can’t believe where she started off her working life. Enjoy.

My Lords, I rise to speak in this important debate and declare an interest as a woman who, like other noble Baronesses speaking here today, has had a long journey to reach this Chamber. Many of us, as we stand on the summit of life’s mountain looking down at the valley of experience, think, “Who would have thought?”.

In 1966 I started my journey as a lowly clerk in the chief accountant’s office of Barclays Bank, a place dominated by men in grey suits and bowler hats. At that time it was my ambition to become the first black woman bank manager in the country. Sadly, it did not take me long to realise that there is a difference between ambition and fantasy. I did, however, cause uproar when I dared to go to work wearing a trouser suit instead of the obligatory skirt. Many of my female colleagues soon copied me, much to the consternation of our male counterparts.

In 1981, at the height of my career as a regular presenter on BBC children’s programmes, getting pregnant was considered a serious error of judgment. In those days it was almost certain that it would be the end of your career, as you were expected to disappear gracefully, with babe in arms, to a life of wifely domestic servitude. Pregnant women were certainly not to be seen below the waist on television when their pregnancy started to become evident. Fortunately for me I had a visionary producer, Cynthia Felgate, who at one time was in the Guinness book of records for producing the most television programmes in the world. She allowed me to continue working and presenting until I was eight months pregnant. This was unheard of and made national and international news. I was seen by millions of viewers fully pregnant, and once I even stopped mid-dance to declare, “I can feel the baby kicking”—the children watching loved that moment. Other female presenters were grateful for this pivotal moment, because they, too, could become pregnant and carry on working onscreen throughout their pregnancy.

It was around 1968, living through the civil rights movement and the race riots here in Britain, when I started to become conscious that more women’s voices were needed in politics. So I organised political meetings and events for fellow Caribbeans in London who felt excluded from society—something that the legendary Claudia Jones had earlier fought against by establishing the West Indian Gazette and the creation of what we all know now as the Notting Hill Carnival. Because of these influences, over the years I began to speak out more and more: I wrote letters to political leaders and campaigned on issues such as seat belts on school ​buses, diversity in publishing and in the media, and, for 20 years, for a Minister for Children—until we finally got one. It is such a shame that that position has now been downgraded from a full ministerial post. I hope that the Government will reconsider this change and correct this short-sighted mistake.

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The Voice

Donna Lalek goes from 5th to 3rd and increases vote share in Alyn and Deeside by-election

By The Voice | Wed 7th February 2018 - 7:52 am

We don’t often see Tuesday by-elections, but the Welsh Assembly’s Alyn and Deeside by-election took place yesterday.

The result was a solid one for Liberal Democrat candidate Donna Lalek.

She moved the party from 5th to 3rd and put on 1.8% in vote share.

And the numbers:

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems mark #vote100

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 6th February 2018 - 9:01 pm

Today, Lib Dems marked the 100th anniversary of women getting the vote.

Vince put 16 and 17 year olds at the heart of his comments:

Today we celebrate 100 years since partial extension of the franchise to women.  It is shocking to think that another decade had to pass before votes were offered on a fully equal basis.

The causes both of gender equality and real democracy in the UK still have far to go.  A century on, we still see unjustifiable gender pay gaps, and sexism remains a scourge in the workplace and throughout society.

Parliament itself remains unrepresentative of society and of political opinion.  The next historic battle for democratic rights in the UK is to extend the franchise to 16 and 17 year olds, and reform our broken electoral system so that every vote counts and all voices can properly be heard.

Sal Brinton said that at current rates of progress her baby granddaughters, 2 this Summer, would be in their 9th decade by the time there was gender quality in the House of Common

In the last 100 years there have obviously been massive changes for the role of women in society. We are more equal, we are treated more fairly, and we face fewer obstacles in our lives. But the job is not yet done. As women we are not yet truly equal, we are not yet treated fairly, and we still face obstacles in our lives.

We are still behind in our politics and change must be led from the top. My granddaughters will be two this summer. At the current, glacial, rate of change they will be in their ninth decade before we have parity in the House of Commons. That is not good enough.

Willie Rennie tweeted:

In Wales, Jane Dodds found herself on the telly – and as the only woman on the panel discussing women getting the vote.

And there is a fabulous video and, of course, call to arms, from Jo Swinson:

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The Voice

Sal Brinton’s call to action on women’s representation – and tales of BBC bad practice and great Liberal women

By The Voice | Tue 6th February 2018 - 8:15 pm

On Monday there was a debate in the House of Lords on Women in Public Life timed to celebrate the 100th anniversary of some women getting the vote. There were many Lib Dem contributions and we’ll be putting them all up over the next few days.

First up is Sal Brinton. Her wide ranging speech included tributes to fantastic Lib Dem women like Nancy Seear and Shirley Williams, horrifying stories of appalling employment practice at the BBC and fond memories of her family member who had been on the Mud March as a 16 year olds and was a passionate suffragist.

Enjoy!

The debate took place before she started her 24 hour fast for Hungry for Democracy:

My Lords, I declare my interest as a director of the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, which has given grants to, among others, WASPI, Make Votes Matter, and other organisations that have been mentioned already during the debate, as well as ​to many other political reform campaigns. I congratulate the noble Baronesses, Lady Williams and Lady Vere, for introducing this debate. We have had the most extraordinarily unified views about the success over the last 100 years, but also recognise that there are many problems.

I want to move back well over 100 years ago to John Stuart Mill. My favourite quotation from him is:

“The most important thing women have to do is to stir up the zeal of women themselves”.

He said that in a letter to Alexander Bain in 1869. A lot of the rest of his political life was spent helping women to be able to do that.

The woman who stirred up my own zeal was Baroness Stocks of Kensington and Chelsea, who started life as a Brinton and was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Norton. She had an extraordinary life. I did not know that—I knew a doughty old lady who came to lunch on Sundays. She was principal of Westfield College, just around the corner from where I lived. My Conservative father, though not an MP at that time, won every argument at the dinner table, except when Mary was there. She taught me, by my watching the way in which she debated and engaged, that it was perfectly possible for women to do what they wanted. I can remember her saying to me on one occasion in the late 1960s, when I was still just at secondary school and so a bit behind the revolution that was going on around me, “You know, you can do exactly what you want to do. You just have to set your mind to it”. This woman did set her mind to it. She did an extraordinary range of things, as did many of the other women who were suffragists and suffragettes. They took that into other parts of their lives. But her passion and deeds started early. In 1907, aged 16, she was on the Mud March, one of the first big marches of the suffragist movements. I quote her voice at that time from her autobiography, My Commonplace Book:

“I carried a banner in the 1907 ‘mud march’ at the head of which walked Mrs Fawcett, Lady Strachey, Lady Frances Balfour, and that indomitable liberty boy, Keir Hardie. As we moved off through the arch of Hyde Park Corner we met a barrage of ridicule from hostile male onlookers. ‘Go home and do the washing,’ ‘Go home and mind the baby’ were the most frequent taunts flung at us. As we proceeded along Piccadilly it was observed by some of the marchers that the balcony of the Ladies’ Lyceum Club was crowded with members looking down from their safe vantage. Some of the marchers looked up and shouted: ‘Come down and join us.’ I do not know whether any of them did.

It was a great adventure for a sixteen-year-old; and on returning to school on the following Monday I was uncertain how my public exploit would be regarded by authority. I need not have worried. All the mistresses were suffragists, as indeed were all salary-earning professional women”.

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