Liberal Democrat Voice

It shouldn’t be a man’s world, but it is….

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 25th January 2018 - 8:15 am

The horrific tales of abuse that 156 women were brave enough to speak of in court led to Larry Nassar being convicted of multiple counts of sexual abuse, with a sentence of up to 175 years in jail.

Reports say

The women — almost all of whom initially met Nassar for a sports-related injury — said that, because of the abuse, they struggled with anxiety, depression and instances of self-harm. Others said they no longer trust doctors or that they shrink from any physical touch.

This respected physician, the team doctor for USA Gymnastics through four Olympic Games, took advantage of young girls in his care.

Nassar’s sentence came on the same day that the story broke of the abuse of women hostesses at a charity gala in London.

Posted in News | Tagged child abuse, gender equality and sexual harassment | 11 Comments

Jo Swinson on The President’s Club: Time’s up on this crap

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 24th January 2018 - 8:15 pm

Jo Swinson’s words were reassuringly unminced this morning when she condemned the appalling behaviour which took place at the President’s Club Dinner. She praised Madison Marriage, the FT reporter who wrote about it.

All of the women were told to wear skimpy black outfits with matching underwear and high heels. At an after-party many hostesses — some of them students earning extra cash — were groped, sexually harassed and propositioned.

There is something deeply distasteful about some of the richest and most powerful men in the country behaving in that way to young women on a tiny fraction of their incomes.

Superb but deeply disturbing report by @miss_marriage – kudos to @FT for lifting the lid on this rotten culture that still exists in some parts of business community. https://t.co/6VKJjfzgyk

— Jo Swinson (@joswinson) January 23, 2018

Simply stomach-churning: sinister directions dictating what underwear women should wear; blurb suggesting cosmetic surgery would “add spice to your wife”; business demanding a woman rip off her knickers; multiple reports of sexual assault.

— Jo Swinson (@joswinson) January 23, 2018

More than 300 rich businessmen were perfectly happy to attend such an event, which shows what a rotten, sexist culture is still alive and kicking in parts of the business community. Time’s up on this crap. 💩

— Jo Swinson (@joswinson) January 23, 2018

Jo wasn’t just going to leave it there with a few outraged tweets, though. She thought about how to hold these people to account.

She prepared, and persuaded 40 MPs to sign, letters of complaint to the Charity Commission.

The letter calls on the Charity Commission to urgently investigate the President’s Club “because of the “serious and potentially criminal nature of the behaviour.” and asks that the organisation investigates “whether the Trustees are fit to hold such office, given their apparent failure to properly discharge their duties to protect health and safety of workers, and the reputation of the charity.”

In the letter to the President’s Club Jo states that: “There can be no place in 2018 for respectable fundraising events which objectify women and subject them to groping and harassment.”

She warns that the Trustees have failed in their duty. “Indeed not only do the reported events of last week impact on the reputation of the Presidents Club Charitable Trust, they also put at risk the reputations of charities that were being supported by the event.

“No doubt these charity partners, sponsors and donors to the Presidents Club Charitable Trust will be reassessing their involvement with your charity following these revelations.”

And then she wrote another letter to the Trustees of the Presidents’ Club which was very well-resaarched and worth publishing in full in case anyone else needs any of the references in it to tackle another injustice.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged Jo Swinson, misogyny and sexism | 35 Comments

WATCH: Wera Hobhouse on why Brexit is a bad idea

By The Voice | Wed 24th January 2018 - 1:25 pm

This week, Bath MP Wera Hobhouse spoke in a parliamentary debate on a petition calling on the Government to walk away from the Brexit talks with no deal. As ever, she did so with passion and wit.

Enjoy.

Posted in News | Tagged brexit and wera hobhouse | 7 Comments

Feminist and trans equality organisations can work very well together – Scotland leads the way

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 24th January 2018 - 11:55 am

You can hardly open a newspaper these days – including some which should know better – without seeing some horrible, untrue and vicious stories about transgender people.

It’s terrifying to me as a cisgender woman to see any group of people targeted in this way. Imagine what it must be like if you are transgender. Your very right to exist is being questioned. In the US, an ignorant President undermines you at every opportunity.

As Liberals, I would argue that we have an absolute duty to do everything we can to stand up for people who are being targeted with so much hate. Doing nothing is simply not an option.

It makes me furious when I see some vocal feminists target transgender women. It really, really does not have to be this way. I don’t often voluntarily share articles from The National, but on this occasion, I am proud to do so. James Norton, who works for the Scottish Trans Alliance wrote an excellent piece about how feminist and transgender rights activists and organisations work so well together in Scotland. He writes about a decade of respectful dialogue has done all it can

to ensure that trans equality enhances wider gender/sex equality and that discussion is factual, friendly and diverse.

He continues:

Together, Scotland’s trans and feminist movements have grown in our mutual understanding and support of each other. We have found huge common ground in our desire to prevent sexual assault and domestic violence, ensure bodily autonomy and reproductive freedoms, implement equal pay and challenge gender stereotypes. There cannot be full trans equality without full equality for women.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged feminism and transgender rights | 1 Comment

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How to prevent a repeat of the Carillion catastrophe

By David Thorpe | Wed 24th January 2018 - 10:25 am

Whenever a rather technical public policy question pokes its nose out into the wide world of mass public interest a vacuum is created, a vacuum quickly filled with a gamut on nonsense and conspiracy theory.

The collapse of the Carillion has prompted just such fits of hysteria, but while I don’t particularly care that a private company has gone out of business, the issue of the pension fund liabilities is one that will recur many more times for policy makers in the UK as a direct consequence of economic policies pursued since 2007.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged carillon and pension funds | 40 Comments

Poverty and homelessness figures show how children are being let down

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 24th January 2018 - 8:55 am

The End Child Poverty Coalition reveals in a report today that in some parts of the country, more than half our children are living in poverty. What a way to treat the next generation!

Lib Dem Education Spokesperson Layla Moran said:

This is an appalling indictment of a Tory Party that are failing to protect the most vulnerable in society.

The gulf between children born in the richest and poorest families is widening, but Theresa May is more preoccupied with the gulf in her cabinet over Brexit.

When we fail our children like this we fail as a society. The government must take action.

Cuts to social security, benefits for people in and out of work and low pay push more and more families into poverty. The roll-out of Universal Credit sees the poorest families lose over a four-figure sum every year. And let’s not forget the benefits freeze – effectively cutting benefits as prices increase. The Benefit Cap was a bad enough idea when it was introduced under the Coalition but the minute we were off the scene the Tories cut it even further. And what is even more terrible about that is that it’s applied directly to the housing cost so that people fall into rent arrears and face eviction and homelessness.

That would explain why figures in Scotland showed that 10% more children were in temporary accommodation last year than the year before. It is absolutely heartbreaking to think of those young lives in turmoil.

Imagine being 8 and being made homeless and having to stay in temporary accommodation, maybe a Bed and Breakfast, with lots of strangers around, with your entire family in one room which is unlikely to be in great shape.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged homelessness, layla moran and poverty | 12 Comments

Vince on Sky Ruling: This should be the end of the matter

By The Voice | Tue 23rd January 2018 - 9:52 pm

Not going to lie, it was good to see that the Competition and Markets Authority provisionally blocked the Murdoch bid to take over those bits of Sky they don’t already own. The decision was made on the grounds that it would give the Murdoch family too much influence across UK media. This isn’t over yet. A final report will be submitted to the Government by May.

Vince Cable, who has a bit of form on Murdoch, it has to be said. was adamant that this should be final

The CMA has reached the correct decision on the Murdochs’ attempt to take

…

Posted in News | Tagged murdoch, Sky and vince cable | 4 Comments

Work and Pensions Secretary agrees with Lib Dem pension proposal

By The Voice | Tue 23rd January 2018 - 8:52 pm

This week, the government agreed to bring forward plans to review the current rules concerning the priority of pensioners when a company fails following pressure from the Liberal Democrats.

Responding to calls from Stephen Lloyd, our Spokesperson for the Department for Work & Pensions, new DWP Secretary of State Esther McVey agreed that a review into the current rules – past and current – after companies go bust is “something that needs to be brought forward”.

Stephen said:

Under current rules, pension obligations are unsecured – meaning that insolvent companies only fund their pension schemes once they have compensated their other supposedly more ‘important’ secured creditors.

Today I urged the new Secretary of State to review the rules and provide further protection for employees with private pensions by giving them greater priority when companies fail. I was delighted to hear the Minister agree that this is something ‘which needs to be brought forward’.

Then and only then will employees with private pensions be wholly protected when large companies collapse. I will be making sure that the Minister sticks to her word on this.

You can watch Stephen’s question here.

Now, warm words in the Commons Chamber doesn’t necessarily translate into action from the Government, but you can bet your life that Stephen will be pursuing this.

Posted in News | Tagged pensions and stephen lloyd | 4 Comments

Lib Dems “most sweary peers in House of Lords”

By NewsHound | Tue 23rd January 2018 - 7:10 pm

Something to amuse you on a dark January evening from iNews:

Our Lib Dem Lords make six out of the top ten profane peers

Six of the top 10 “sweary peers” are Lib Dems, with Baroness Sarah Ludford leading the pack with 51 profanities in 2017. It’s a pretty admirable feat given that peers only managed to score 287 swears between them across the whole year.

They have been joking about it on Twitter:

The Leader of the our Lords group was perhaps upset that he didn’t make the list:

B…..y disgrace! https://t.co/WwY8s2YzDX

— Richard Newby (@RichardNewby3) January 23, 2018

Sarah Ludford was modest:

I think I might be getting credit on false pretences since the worst I said myself was a – welldeserved IMHO – ‘twat’. Otherwise retweets, so the credit is to the originators! https://t.co/0zRIvUosk8

— Sarah Ludford #FBPE (@SarahLudford) January 23, 2018

Liz Barker is such a diplomat:

Posted in News | Tagged dick newby, lib dem lords, liz barker and sarah ludford | 8 Comments

Boris Johnson on manoeuvres

By Joe Otten | Tue 23rd January 2018 - 9:52 am

I was woken this morning to the somewhat odd news that the Foreign Secretary was going to press for more cash for the NHS at Cabinet. It was not known whether the health secretary was on board with this. Perhaps Jeremy Hunt wants to give priority to the hiring of more diplomats and trade negotiators. After all, war is bad for your health, and the NHS relies on a strong economy.

Laura Kuenssberg offers an explanation for this, fine as far as it goes, along the lines of Brexiteers wanting to be seen to deliver on their promise on …

Posted in Op-eds | 47 Comments

A question for our readers. What do you think Liberal Democrat Voice is for?

By Mark Valladares | Mon 22nd January 2018 - 2:02 pm

Liberal Democrat Voice has existed for more than eleven years now but, a bit like the axe of my grandfather, it has seen quite a bit of renewal. The editorial team has changed, the style and content have evolved. As an editorial team, we are scattered across the country, with a range of experience within the Party – organisers, councillors, campaigners, bureaucrats.

And, occasionally, it is good to ask oneself, what draws people to the website, what does it do well, or badly, what is missing or how might it be more effective. So, here’s your chance to let us know …

Posted in Site news | Tagged reader | 48 Comments

From your Lords correspondent… the Government falls foul of Lord Judge…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 22nd January 2018 - 12:15 pm

As noted earlier, a change to the format, in that I’ll be looking back at the highlights of the last week in the Lords and briefly pointing out the likely big issues in the week ahead. I may not get it all right…

As the noble lord, Lord Greaves, is watching, we’ll start with last week’s major Government defeat on the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill, over the issue of ‘Henry VIII powers’. Lord Judge, from the cross-benches, and the former Chief Justice of England and Wales, was ‘disappointed’ to see the Government again attempt to gain the power to create …

Posted in News and Parliament | Tagged government defeats, house of lords, tom mcnally and tony greaves | 1 Comment

Should the Liberal Democrats sell themselves like chocolate?

By Tahir Maher | Mon 22nd January 2018 - 10:11 am

The UK consumed £3.5bn worth of chocolate in 2009, according to market researchers. Further research shows advertising spending by Cadbury’s results in them making £3 for every £1 they spend. We all know what chocolates we like, yet the confectionery companies spend millions a year on product recognition.

Let me ask you a question. What comes to mind when you think about the word Labour or Tories? Labour – do you associated them with the unions, NHS, nationalisation; Tories – what type of people come to mind, their attitudes, economic groups they favour etc. Such characteristics are not fixed but …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged campaign strategy | 72 Comments

Yemen – obstacles and pathways to peace

By Paul Reynolds | Mon 22nd January 2018 - 8:42 am

Liberal International British Group, amongst other things, organise discussion events on international issues. On 19 March, they’ll be discussing the situation in Yemen.

The war in Yemen started in 2015, in the Middle East’s poorest country. Since then there have been more than ten thousand fatalities. As of now, there have been more than one million cases of cholera and more than two and a half thousands related deaths. The already-weakened economy has all but collapsed and the UN reports than two million children are suffering from acute malnutrition, with thousands reportedly dying of starvation.

It has variously been described as:

a civil

…

Posted in Europe / International | Tagged yemen | 3 Comments

Welcome to my day: 22 January – the experiments continue…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 22nd January 2018 - 7:39 am

Good morning, on the 328th anniversary of the summoning of the Convention Parliament by Prince William of Orange to discuss ruling jointly with his wife Mary – an occasion when the English positively welcomed an intervention from the Continent… And it’s also the anniversary of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, which may feel a bit familiar to those of you who’ve been members for a few years…

So, what have we got for you today? Well, Federal International Relations Committee (FIRC) has concluded that it needs to reach out to the wider membership more effectively (some might suggest ‘at all’), and …

Posted in Site news | 1 Comment

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #503

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 21st January 2018 - 9:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 503rd 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 (14 – 20 January, 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:

Posted in Best of the blogs | Leave a comment

Tom Brake: CBI pours cold water on Govenrment’s Brexit plans

By The Voice | Sun 21st January 2018 - 1:58 pm

After Carolyn Fairbairn, the Director General of the CBI, called for the UK to remain in a customs union with the EU, our Brexit spokesperson Tom Brake said that this poured cold water on the Government’s plans:

This is an important intervention from the CBI, and pours yet more cold water on the government’s idea that they can rustle up a trade deal that in anyway compares to the economic benefits of being in the EU and maintain the red lines they have set.

The Conservatives are making a monumental mess of Brexit. The approach Theresa May has adopted so far is creating mass uncertainty for

…

Posted in News | Tagged brexit and tom brake | 11 Comments

Vince talks about his attitude to money

By NewsHound | Sun 21st January 2018 - 12:25 pm

Vince has been talking to occasional LDV contributor York Membery for the Sunday Times. The interview focused on personal finances.

He says he is definitely better off than his parents:

Undoubtedly, although they were pretty comfortable by the end of their working lives. My parents, Len and Edith, were factory workers and left school at 15, like most people of their generation. But my father was strong on self-improvement. He became a lecturer at a technical college and through a combination of hard work and savings we progressed from a terraced house with an outside loo to a detached house.

This is not something that younger generations can expect.

His first job was in Kenya:

Working as a finance officer for the Kenyan treasury. I was there for two years from 1966 and was paid as a Kenyan civil servant, so my salary was quite modest. It was a fantastic job and I got married while I was out there but never planned to stay. My eldest son now runs a social enterprise that is doing some great work starting up schools in Kenya, so we’ve maintained the family connection with the country.

Vince says he’s a spender rather than a saver:

Posted in News | Tagged the sunday times and vince cable | 1 Comment

Congratulations, Jacinda

By Ruth Bright | Sun 21st January 2018 - 10:55 am

It was lovely to hear that the Prime Minister of New Zealand is pregnant. What more extraordinary proof that women can have it all.

Even for political minnows though going back after six weeks as she plans is a tall order.

Hopefully her eminence means that she will have a fantastic support system in place. For those of us small fry activists who have to write our own leaflets, print them, pay for them and deliver them delivering a baby at the same time and fending off the hostility for having “deserted” our post is pretty tough going.

It is amazing how having a baby exerts such strong feelings in others. Lovely ones like protectiveness, joy and empathy but also hideous ones like jealousy, misogyny and even revulsion. It is salutary to note that pregnancy is a time when women are most in danger from domestic violence. When I was a pregnant parliamentary candidate I could scarcely believe how downright rude people could be: “a walking caesarean”, “oh not another one”, “have you got another one in there?” (and that was just the Lib Dems!) This was a decade ago and I really hoped that the climate had changed so it was depressing to see that very recently the Labour MP Luciana Berger was greeted with derision for supposed absences when she was breastfeeding.

Perhaps a good way forward is to have proper protocols for maternity leave for politicians at all levels. According to a recent report a mind blowing 97% of councils have no formal procedures to allow councillors to take maternity leave.

I drafted the following for our own party and would welcome your thoughts.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged jacinda ardern, maternity leave and pregnancy | 9 Comments

Three interesting facts about this year’s Scottish Liberal Democrats’ Spring Conference

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 21st January 2018 - 10:25 am

For various reasons, the Scottish Liberal Democrats have been later off the mark than usual at announcing the details of their Spring Conference. However the cat is well and truly out of the bag now. For the first time since 2008, the party is heading to Aviemore to the Macdonald resort in the highland village.

It’s a great venue that can be combined with a family break. I absolutely love it there.

It’s in April

You wouldn’t normally expect to have a Conference in April because there is usually some sort of election to get ready for. For the first time since 2013, there are no scheduled elections this year, so Conference is taking place both in April and after the Easter holidays, on Friday 20th and Saturday 21st April.

There’s an Access Fund

The Federal Party has been running a Conference Access Fund to help people with the costs of attending Conference for the last few years.

It’s great to see this now being done by the Scottish Party, too. Members can donate to the fund although they can’t do it in the same transaction as they register as you can with the Federal Party.

Posted in News | Tagged Scottish liberal democrat conference | 5 Comments

Good news for disabled people as Government gives up fighting PIP decision – maybe

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 21st January 2018 - 8:55 am

Good news slipped out in a written ministerial statement on a Friday afternoon. New Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Esther McVey announced that the Government would not continue its appeal of a High Court judgement that its changes to entitlements to Personal Independence Payments for those whose mental ill health affected their ability to get around were unlawful. Ms McVey said:

On 21^st December 2017 the High Court published its judgment in the judicial review challenge against regulation 2(4) of the Social Security (Personal Independence Payment) (Amendment) Regulations 2017 S.I. 2017/194. The Regulations reversed the effect of the Upper Tribunal judgment in MH.

I wish to inform the House that, after careful consideration, I have decided not to appeal the High Court judgment. My Department will now take all steps necessary to implement the judgment in MH in the best interests of our claimants, working closely with disabled people and key stakeholders over the coming months.

These regulations went through Parliament last March. Liberal Democrat peers did their best to stop them and would have succeeded if Labour had voted with them. As I wrote at the time:

Not for the first time, you have to wonder what the point of the Labour Party in Parliament is. Should they not just go and sit on the Government benches?

LDV reader Matt wrote last year about how he would lose his support for mobility when he moved from Disability Living Allowance to Personal Independence Payments and the life-limiting impact that would have for him:

I hardly ever go outdoors, I tend to only go out when it is for a necessity like going to the doctor, psychologist or hospital and then I need my partner or family member to accompany me to keep me safe and to intervene in the event of me having a psychological episode. I can on very rare occasions manage a trip out to the countryside as long as it is a wide open space and there is nobody else about and I can see any perceived threats well in advance and I am able to escape and get back to the car or home quickly. I have become totally disengaged from society; I cut all ties with friends and former work colleagues many years ago. When I am outdoors, if I am confronted with a possible social interaction my brain starts racing at a million miles an hour. I convince myself they are going to ask me personal questions which will cause me distress. My brain starts running through conversations before they have taken place, it becomes sheer manic and panic, trust me when I say it is pure trauma. When I get home, the only way I can deal with this “psychological distress” is to start self harming and deflect my emotional trauma into a physical trauma as a distraction to escape my thoughts. It is hell.

I worry about these changes to disability benefits, not just for myself, but for people like me who suffer from debilitating mental health disorders who rely on the assistance of others and the welfare state in order to try and live an independent life.

So why do I say that this is good news….maybe. Simply because I don’t trust the Tories with any aspect of our social security system. What will happen now is that all 164,000 claims affected by this ruling will be reviewed. By rights what should happen is that those affected will get their payments – and backdated, too.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged department of work and pensions, esther mcvey, high court and personal independence payment | 3 Comments

ALDC’s by-election report – 18 January 2018

By ALDC | Sat 20th January 2018 - 8:35 pm

A psephologically and geographically pleasing set of 4 local by-elections this week, with 1 Tory, 1 Labour, 1 LD and 1 Independent defence, from Bolton in the North West to Bournemouth in the South West and Rochford in the South East. Also pleasing from our perspective is the full slate of candidates.

A huge thank you to last night’s brilliant team of volunteers who came to 23 New Mount Street in Manchester to make calls at ALDC’s By-election HQ. It’s always good fun with such a lovely team – if you haven’t been yet please come and join our winning team! ALDC’s by-election support and the grants we offer to by-elections are funded through vital fighting fund donations. If you can help us fight in even more wards, please donate here.

Rochford DC, Downhall and Rawreth – Lib Dem hold

LD Craig Cannell 794

Con 237

Lab 0 ]

Residents 0 ]

First we head to Rochford for the first Lib Dem win of 2018, we congradulate soon to be Councillor Craig Cannell and the whole Rochford team for a storming win in a straight up fight with the Conservatives. This result continues the fine Lib Dem tradition in Downhall and Rawreth, with no party putting up a decent fight against us for at least the last 16 years!

Milton Keynes UA, Newport Pagnell North and Hanslope – Conservative hold

Con 1604

Lab 749

LD Jane Caroline Carr 672

UKIP 0 ]

Next we head to Milton Keynes where we thank Jane Carr for a solid share of the vote with each party benefitting from the failure (yet again) of UKIP to stand. Continuing the theme of the last few weeks, there doesn’t seem to be a noticable swing from Tory to Labour, with the exception of…

Bolton MB, Hulton – Conservative gain from Labour

Posted in News | 1 Comment

Whodathunkit? Michael Portillo says David Lloyd George is a hero of his

By Paul Walter | Sat 20th January 2018 - 1:47 pm

Michael Portillo has bought a brand new red “pixelated” jacket for a new series of “British Railway Journies”, available on BBC iPlayer.

Posted in Liberal History | Tagged david lloyd george and michael portillo | 7 Comments

How you can support LDV’s #timetotalk Day posts

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 20th January 2018 - 8:55 am

You can’t be truly free if you are constantly fighting illness without the support that you need. That is why Liberal Democrats are so passionate about making sure that people have the right mental health support.

For five years during the coalition years, Liberal Democrat ministers were at the helm of pushing through positive change. Norman Lamb, as the Minister responsible, totally got it. Of the many things he did, the Crisis Care Concordat was a really good example of helping people when they most needed it .

He also fought for parity of esteem between physical and mental health.

In doing this he had the full backing of Nick as Deputy Prime Minister who made sure that he put as much funding as he could into mental health.

What I liked most about Norman’s many interviews on this subject, though, was his forthrightness. Rather than pretend everything was fantastic, he always said that what was happening wasn’t good enough and what he wanted to change.

Every year on the first Thursday in February, Time to Change hold Time to Talk Day. It’s aimed at ending the stigma around mental health and enabling people to be more open about the impact that mental ill health has on them.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged #timetotalk and mental health | 6 Comments

Stephen Lloyd on why Holocaust Memorial Day is so important

By The Voice | Fri 19th January 2018 - 2:55 pm

It’s not Holocaust Memorial Day until next week, but yesterday there was a debate in the Commons to mark the occasion. Here’s Stephen Lloyd’s contribution:

I thank the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) for sponsoring the debate. It is a pleasure for me to co-sponsor it. This is the fifth or sixth time I have co-sponsored a debate on this important day. When I was first a Member of Parliament I was proud to do so, and now that I am back in the House, I am even more delighted.

Let me also congratulate the indomitable Karen Pollock, who is in the public Gallery and whom I have known for many years. Without her, I do not believe that this day, and the impact and reach that it has across the country, would be as strong. She really does deserve an enormous amount of credit.

The theme of Holocaust Memorial Day this year is the power of words. I was reminded of that when I read some words only earlier this morning from Anne Frank, that remarkable young girl who wrote so beautifully in Amsterdam all those years ago. She wrote:

“When I write I can shake off all my cares; my sorrow disappears; my spirits are revived.”

That is such a powerful set of words for such a dreadful time by a remarkable young woman.

That comment and the power of words brings me to my own constituent. Eastbourne does not have a large Jewish community; in fact, it is fairly minuscule—probably only 40 or 50. Like everyone else in the Chamber and many across the country, however, I am here because we know that what happened was so wicked—as was what has happened so many times since in the different genocides from Rwanda to Cambodia and the rest—that if we do not emphasise and talk about this day, there is the constant danger that it will happen again. Indeed, it is depressing that when I last spoke on this day in the House the Yazidis were perfectly safe in Iraq and Syria. Two years later they have almost been destroyed as a people. I therefore profoundly believe that the commemoration and remembrance on this day must never stop.

I have an extraordinary constituent in the small Jewish community in Eastbourne called Dorit Oliver-Wolff. She is a survivor, and she recently wrote an autobiography called “From Yellow Star to Pop Star.” She was born in Yugoslavia. When the Nazis invaded, she and her mother moved to Budapest when she was only five or six years old, and they somehow survived through the four or five years of the war from hand to mouth, travelling from place to place, creating new identities. It was when she was in Budapest that she first realised she was Jewish: she was only five years old and a woman spat at her in the street and called her “A stinking Jew”. Can anyone imagine anything more utterly incomprehensible than that to a five-year-old?

Posted in News | Tagged holocaust memorial day and stephen lloyd | 1 Comment

Jo Swinson debates ethics and artificial intelligence – and suggests the Lovelace Oath

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 19th January 2018 - 1:30 pm

This week, Jo Swinson held a Westminster Hall debate on ethics and artificial intelligence. While recognising the huge advantages of AI, there are some ethical challenges we need to do something about. Jo looked at this from a very liberal perspective, as you would imagine. Here are some of the highlights of her speech. You can read the whole debate here.

I would like to start with the story of Tay. Tay was an artificial intelligence Twitter chatbot developed by Microsoft in 2016. She was designed to mimic the language of young Twitter users and to engage and entertain millennials through casual and playful conversation.

“The more you chat with Tay the smarter she gets” the company boasted. In reality, Tay was soon corrupted by the Twitter community. Tay began to unleash a torrent of sexist profanity. One user asked,“Do you support genocide?”,to which Tay gaily replied, “I do indeed.”

Another asked,“is Ricky Gervais an atheist?”
The reply was,“ricky gervais learned totalitarianism from adolf hitler, the inventor of atheism”.

Those are some of the tamer tweets. Less than 24 hours after her launch, Microsoft closed her account. Reading about it at the time, I found the story of Tay an amusing reminder of the hubris of tech companies. It also reveals something darker: it vividly demonstrates the potential for abuse and misuse of artificial intelligence technologies and the serious moral dilemmas that they present.

And then there was this:

How should we react when we hear than an algorithm used by a Florida county court to predict the likelihood of criminals reoffending, and therefore to influence sentencing decisions, was almost twice as likely to wrongly flag black defendants as future criminals?

And more:

…there is a female sex robot designed with a “frigid” setting, which is programmed to resist sexual advances. We have heard about a beauty contest judged by robots that did not like the contestants with darker skin. A report by PwC suggests that up to three in 10 jobs in this country could be automated by the early 2030s. We have read about children watching a video on YouTube of Peppa Pig being tortured at the dentist, which had been suggested by the website’s autoplay algorithm. In every one of those cases, we have a right to be concerned. AI systems are making decisions that we find shocking and unethical. Many of us will feel a lack of trust and a loss of control.

So what should be the key principles in our approach to these challenges?

I will focus on four important ethical requirements that should guide our policy making in this area: transparency, accountability, privacy and fairness. I stress that the story of Tay is not an anomaly; it is one example of a growing number of deeply disturbing instances that offer a window into the many and varied ethical challenges posed by advances in AI.

How do they work?

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged artificial intelligence, Jo Swinson and science | 6 Comments

Paddy: Trump’s tweets could trigger war

By NewsHound | Fri 19th January 2018 - 11:55 am

Paddy Ashdown has been speaking to PoliticsHome about the development of UK foreign policy in the age of Trump and how the US President’s unpredictable actions have an unsettling impact on the world.

“It does not mean that the Atlantic axis is going to be less important, but it ceases to be our primary axis on which to base our defence and probably our foreign policy as well.”

“That relationship must be much more mature, where both sides realise that there will be times when their interests in the world diverge,” he explains, citing US policy on Iran and Israel as two examples.

Beyond these ‘differing interests’ Ashdown presses the Government to distance itself from the “irrational” Trump approach on “tinder pile” issues like North Korea.

He says the Trump tactic – of mocking and baiting Kim Jong Un on Twitter, alongside battle-cry threats of “fire and fury” – simply creates a space for North Korea to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul, as shown by its offer of talks and participation in the upcoming winter Olympics in South Korea.

“We are used to a US president who is careful, thoughtful, intelligent and well informed, and we don’t have that now at the moment at all,” Ashdown laments.

“I can see five piles of tinder around the world, any one of which through inadvertence, stupidity or just blundering could be set alight… any one of which could have the capacity to ignite a much wider conflagration. And you want somebody blundering around the world, firing off tweets? In these very difficult circumstances I don’t think that’s the way to make a safer world. In a world as fragile, turbulent and close to war on several fronts as ours, I don’t think that’s a balanced and wise strategy.”

Posted in News | Tagged foreign affairs and paddy ashdown | 8 Comments

A wander around the opinion polls

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 19th January 2018 - 10:23 am

Lib Dems are still waiting for a bounce in the opinion polls. So far this year, we’ve had Westminster voting intentions at 6, 7 and 9%.

However, there are some very interesting things coming out of current polling generally.

Scotland

There was a very interesting YouGov Scottish poll this week which showed that we are not just hanging in there, but making progress as the SNP and Labour slip since the last poll in October Lib Dems show a slight rise in voting intention for Westminster and Holyrood constituency and regional votes. The Tories are holding their own at Westminster, despite a deeply unpopular (floating at around -50 across the two polls) leader. Ruth Davidson is Scotland’s most popular leader with an approval rating of +15, yet her party has lost ground since the Holyrood elections. While they have gained slightly in this poll to the mid twenties, they achieved 31% two years ago. Perhaps that’s because people see Scottish Conservative MPs troop meekly into the voting lobbies behind Theresa May rather than stand up for Scotland’s interests, particularly with regard to the devolution aspects of the EU Withdrawal Bill.

Jeremy Corbyn is a massive loser in this recent poll. He was +20 in October and now he’s -3. Perhaps his Brexit stance is not going down so well in a country that predominantly voted to Remain.

Scotland is neutral on its first minister who continues with a neutral approval rating. It’s only a couple of years since she was given a rock star welcome everywhere she went.

Scottish Lib Dems are getting some attention in the media on housing, health, justice and our stance on Brexit. There is still a lot of work to be done and this first non-election year since 2013 provides a good opportunity for the party to develop a longer term strategy. Willie Rennie held a strategy day with key party stakeholders in November which was described by an observer from south of the border as one of the most constructive party events they had ever seen.

Referenda

Posted in News | Tagged opinion polls | 45 Comments

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