News Meerkat

Tony Blair advises voters to consider supporting the Lib Dems or Tories

By News Meerkat | Mon 24th April 2017 - 12:42 pm

The Independent reports:

Tony Blair has advised those going to the polls to consider voting for the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats in order to weaken the Prime Minister’s mandate for a hard Brexit.

The former Prime Minister said it was important to vote for candidates who had an “open mind” on the final deal and that people should not limit their votes to just Labour because the issue was “bigger than party allegiance”.

…Speaking on Sunday on the BBC’s The World This Weekend programme he said: “The absolutely central question at this general election is less who is the prime minister on 9 June, and more what is the nature of the mandate.

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Paul Walter

We’ve learnt the hard way not to stand in the middle of the road

By Paul Walter | Mon 24th April 2017 - 11:10 am

We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run down.

Aneurin Bevan quoted in the Observer, 6 December 1953

We have reason to be cautiously optimistic about the forthcoming elections.

It will probably take years to clarify why we had such a disastrous result in the 2015 general election, but it seems plausible to say that it was because people did not know what we stood for any more. Despite a laundry list of governmental achievements, we had, to an extent, sold our soul to the devil – the tuition fees disaster being emblematic of the whole thing. Then we went into the election saying effectively that we’d put a tape measure between the two other main parties and stand exactly equidistant between them. OK, that’s not what we said, but that was the perception that came over.

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Layla Moran MP

Moving towards a progressive alliance

By Layla Moran MP | Mon 24th April 2017 - 9:40 am

General Election campaigning has got off to a flying start across the country and it is exhilarating to be ‘back in the saddle’. Oxford West and Abingdon was hard fought at the last election and it looks like it will be again. Like many seats, the Tory incumbent increased her majority here in 2015, yet this still feels like a marginal, and we are campaigning to win.

We were knocking on doors yesterday and what struck me was just how different this election feels compared to 2015. The political sands continue to shift beneath our feet but the wind is very definitely no longer against us. This constituency voted strongly to remain, yet the local MP flip-flopped and is now totally behind a Hard Brexit. This, combined with a weak Labour party nationally, has meant that local Labour and Green voters are more open than ever to lending us their vote to beat the Tory this time. And we are going to need them to do it.

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The Voice

Liberal Democrats expected to surpass 100,000 members today

By The Voice | Mon 24th April 2017 - 12:02 am

The Liberal Democrat membership surge is about to take the party to a landmark 100,000 members – thanks to a staggering 12,500 joining since Theresa May announced the snap General Election last Tuesday.

Reaching six figures makes the party bigger than it has been since the mid-1990s and puts it on course to reach its highest membership ever within days. The biggest the party has been since its formation is 101,768 in 1994.

It means that more than 50,000 members have joined since last year’s European referendum and more than 67,500 since the 2015 General Election.

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron pledged to build the party to 100,000 members by the end of the parliament as a key pledge during his 2015 leadership campaign – but at that point everyone expected the end of the parliament to be 2020.

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Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #477

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 23rd April 2017 - 10:04 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 477th 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 (16-22 April, 2017), 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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Paul Walter

Lib Dems put forward youngest candidate on Isle of Wight

By Paul Walter | Sun 23rd April 2017 - 2:31 pm


The Isle of Wight County Press reports:

A FRESH face will be taking the reigns in the Isle of Wight Liberal Democrats’ fight for parliament on June 8.

Nicholas Belfitt, 24, of Shanklin, was selected as the parliamentary candidate at a local party meeting today Saturday.

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Paul Walter

Former Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews joins the Lib Dems

By Paul Walter | Sun 23rd April 2017 - 12:02 pm


MedwayCLPBob and Big Ben

The BBC reports:

Former Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews has defected to the Lib Dems after describing Jeremy Corbyn’s party as a “political basket case”.

Mr Marshall-Andrews told The Times he had jumped ship in light of the Brexit campaign and Labour’s refusal to stand aside in the Richmond Park by-election.

The QC and barrister was MP for Medway from 1997 to 2010.

A Labour spokesman said: “Bob Marshall-Andrews has not been a member of the Labour Party for some years.”

Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said he was “coming over to the only party that is offering a credible opposition to a divisive Tory Brexit government”.

Mr Marshall-Andrews used to sit with the socialist group of Labour MPs alongside Mr Corbyn and shadow chancellor John McDonnell.

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Paul Walter

The ‘hit list’ of Pro-EU Tory MPs the Lib Dems are targeting in Brexit election purge – Telegraph

By Paul Walter | Sun 23rd April 2017 - 10:30 am

The Telegraph reports:

The Liberal Democrats have drawn up a hit-list of pro-EU Tory MPs who they want to unseat as they plot a Brexit purge for the election campaign.

The Telegraph can reveal that four Conservatives in parts of the country which most voted to stay in the European Union have been singled out.

Among those targeted will be Tania Mathias MP, whose Twickenham constituency overwhelmingly backed staying in the EU at last year’s referendum.

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The Voice

Rennie: Liberal Democrats have the momentum

By The Voice | Sun 23rd April 2017 - 8:55 am

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie has  declared that momentum has given the Liberal Democrats the upper hand in the snap general election.

Since the announcement on Tuesday of a snap election 8,000 people have joined the party with membership more than double than what it was before the election in 2015.  The party also raised £500,000 in just 48 hours.

In an email to members, Willie wrote:

Nobody was expecting the announcement on Tuesday but the calling of the general election has given the Liberal Democrats real momentum. A staggering  8000 new members joined the party in the 48 hours after the election was called as people have flocked to us in a bid to change the direction of this country. No other party has seen such a surge.

The upcoming election comes on top of the 30 council by-elections that the Liberal Democrats have gained since last year, including in Scotland. And who could forget that historic by-election victory in Richmond, overturning a Tory majority of 23,000 to be the voice against the Conservative hard Brexit.

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Caron Lindsay

Encouraging poll news for the Liberal Democrats

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 23rd April 2017 - 8:01 am

The first Scottish opinion polls since the General Election was announced have been published and there’s mixed news for the Liberal Democrats.

Panelbase has us on just 5% (but that’s still up since January) and Survation has us up 1 from the 2015 election at 9%. If we go up at the rate that we have done in every election other than 2015, we could be on for a fair few gains up here. Edinburgh West and North East Fife, both gained from the SNP at Holyrood last year are the top targets but seats like Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross and Charles Kennedy’s old seat of Ross, Skye and Lochaber are definitely in play. Winning back those highland heartlands from the SNP would be a marvellous thing and it is eminently doable.

On a UK level, we’ve gone up 4 points to 12% in a YouGov poll.

And there has been another important development:

UKIP are on the way down, and they certainly don’t seem to have learned any lessons about candidate approval, if one of their Glasgow council candidates is anything to go by. It’s quite something when being in favour of the guillotine and flogging are the mildest of your bizarre views. From the Herald:

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems will not go into coalition – Farron

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 22nd April 2017 - 10:31 pm

Tim Farron has done what I’d been hoping and ruled out the Liberal Democrats going into coalition with either Tories or Labour.

This means that the Tory argument that Corbyn, Sturgeon and Farron will get together and do a deal with the Loch Ness Monster to crash the stock exchange (ok, maybe the last bit of that was an exaggeration) is shown to be nonsense. People can vote Liberal Democrat with confidence knowing that we will do everything we can to oppose the Tories and Labour on Brexit.

It also has the advantage of putting to bed at the earliest stage of the campaign the endless questions about who we would go into coalition with and what would we compromise on. This has dominated questions to Lib Dem leaders in past elections and it is good that we have eliminated it. There is no way that we could credibly do a deal with either. Providing serious issue by issue opposition is what we will be doing.

Here’s what Tim said in an email to party members:

I want to make this clear.

The Liberal Democrats will not enter into any coalition deal with either Theresa May’s Conservatives or Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party.

On Thursday 8th June, every vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote to change the direction of our country and stop a hard Brexit.

The reasons for this decision are simple.

Under no conditions can we sign up to Theresa May’s Hard Brexit agenda; a hard Brexit will be a disaster for Britain. It risks crashing our economy and leaving us isolated on the global stage.

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Paul Walter

+++Tim Farron’s pledge to voters: Lib Dems won’t make coalition deals

By Paul Walter | Sat 22nd April 2017 - 9:56 pm

The Observer reports:

The Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron has ruled out any form of coalition with the Tories or Labour after the general election as he sets out a bold ambition to attract enough Remain voters to form the main opposition party in parliament.

In a dramatic shift of strategy for a party that entered coalition with the Conservatives in 2010 in the “national interest”, Farron said in an interview with the Observer that there will be “no deal, no deal with anybody” under any circumstances.

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Paul Walter

General election campaigns get off to a flying start across the country

By Paul Walter | Sat 22nd April 2017 - 9:18 pm

Campaigns, of course, are already up and running across the country for the May 4th local elections, but Theresa May’s announcement has given even greater impetus to Lib Dem activists across the country.

Here’s a round-up of some of today’s action via Twitter – please let us know about any other team action photos in the comments field below!:

Caroline Pidgeon was up in Cambridge lending her support to Julian Huppert in his campaign to regain the city’s parliamentary seat and also to Rod Cantrill in his bid to be the first Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough:

Jane Dodds and the team have been out in Montgomeryshire:

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Natalie Chindipha

General Election Webinars 2017

By Natalie Chindipha | Sat 22nd April 2017 - 4:48 pm

We will be hosting a series of webinars for party members in the run up to the 2017 General Election. These sessions will arm you with essential skills needed during the campaign, including media training, fundraising and campaign skills.

Full details below:

How to get confident & in control with the media

Tuesday 25 April 2017|Time 5-6pm| Trainer: Laura Shields – Media Trainer, Director of The Media Coach & chair of Brussels Lib Dems.

This session will cover:

  • How to understand a journalist’s mindset
  • Tricks of the media
  • How to build effective messages
  • Staying in control

Register here

Fundraising

Wednesday 26 April 2017|Time 5-6pm| Trainer: HQ Fundraising Team 

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Paul Walter

Tim Farron: Trump putting the UK at the ‘back of the queue’ is a devastating blow to May’s hard Brexit

By Paul Walter | Sat 22nd April 2017 - 2:05 pm

Responding to reports Donald Trump will put the EU ahead of the UK in trade talks, Liberal Democrat Leader Tim Farron said:

This is a devastating blow to Theresa May’s hard Brexit plans.

Yet another claim by the Brexiteers, that Britain would be at the front of the queue for a trade deal with US, now lies in tatters.

Theresa May should now make clear she will prioritise a trade deal with the EU over one with Trump.

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Paul Walter

Does Parliament have the plushest waiting room in the world?

By Paul Walter | Sat 22nd April 2017 - 12:30 pm

St Stephen’s Hall, Houses of Parliament – some rights reserved by UK Parliament

Despite understandable security measures, it is still easy to visit the Houses of Parliament and watch the proceedings.

I went there this week. You basically present yourself at the Cromwell Green entrance, which is halfway along the building by the big statue of Oliver Cromwell. At the gate, they tend to ask you why you want to come in – but you just have to say “I want to go to the public gallery of the House of Commons (or Lords)” and they’ll let you in (having checked that the queues are not too long). You then get given a green card and are seen by a policeman who gives you a little briefing. You then go through the inevitable airport security check and you are in.

It’s worth noting that it is your right as a citizen to enter Parliament and ask to see your MP at the central lobby. You are advised to book an appointment with your MP for such a meeting, but you don’t have to. Of course, he or she might not be in Parliament if you turn up unannounced, but all UK residents have a right to walk into parliament for such a purpose or to watch proceedings.

Once you are in you do have a surprising amount of freedom to linger and wander through the place, without any “shooing along” from officials. There are officials and security guards around, but it is really quite surprising how free you are to “mooch about” and admire the various paintings, plaques, ceilings etc. You get to stroll through Westminster Hall, which is magnificent and the most historic part of the present Parliamentary buildings. Charles I was tried there.

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The Voice

WATCH: Nick Clegg on Newsnight giving a clue about our election strategy

By The Voice | Sat 22nd April 2017 - 10:55 am

Nick Clegg appeared on Newsnight on Wednesday night at the end of a feature on Tory/Lib Dem marginals in the South West.

He said that Theresa May had called the election for cynical and opportunistic reasons, to try and “hoover up a huge majority” before the effects of Brexit hit and capitalising on the weakness of Corbyn.

He said that issues like the chronic underfunding of the NHS and schools were also important and were being overshadowed by Brexit.

In an interesting glimpse to our election strategy, he said that it was clear that Theresa May would still be PM and the Tories would still be the party of Government and the key test now was how to provide effective opposition to that Government. We are not going to sustain Theresa May in power to “implement a self-harming hard brexit” and we certainly aren’t going to help Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street.

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NewsHound

Theresa May doesn’t want to do debates because of Tim Farron – Paul Staines

By NewsHound | Sat 22nd April 2017 - 8:53 am

Every so often, the right wing talk shows come up with something a liberal wants to hear.

“Sharp, witty, self-deprecating, a pleasure to interview, a polished media performer.” Who said this about our Tim?

None other than Julia Hartley-Brewer on Talk Radio, chatting to Guido Fawkes’ owner Paul Staines about the lack of leaders’ debates in the forthcoming General Election. She even started to say that he was likeable but then apparently thought better of it.

Staines said that it wasn’t Corbyn May was bothered about, it was Tim Farron. Hartley-Brewer then came out with the compliments above.

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The Voice

It’s Friday, there’s an election on, there must be a funny story about Willie Rennie and livestock

By The Voice | Fri 21st April 2017 - 8:20 pm

You just need to Google “Willie Rennie and pigs” to find the funniest moment of last year’s Holyrood election campaign. 

Well, there’s another election on and Willie put the past behind him and went to see some lambs.

So far, so cute:

What could possibly go wrong?

Apart from the odd unfortunate camera angle.

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The Voice

Lib Dems raise almost £10,500 an hour since election called – more than double Labour’s effort

By The Voice | Fri 21st April 2017 - 6:55 pm

The Lib Dems have raised more than £500,000 in individual donations since Theresa May called for a General Election on Tuesday morning.

From the BBC:

All parties have made cash appeals to supporters after Theresa May’s surprise decision to hold an election on 8 June.

The Lib Dems say they raised £500,000 in 48 hours.

A similar Labour fund-raising drive is reported to have raised £200,000. Labour has yet to comment on the figure, reported by the FT.

The Conservatives have been contacted for details of their fundraising efforts.

Lib Dem leader Tim Farron claimed activists and donors were “flocking” to his party on the back of its distinctive anti-Brexit message.

The party, who are arguing for another referendum on the final Brexit deal, say they have seen their membership jump to 95,000, attracting 8,000 new members since Tuesday alone.

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Paul Walter

Public funding for the arts should be cut during a recession, right?

By Paul Walter | Fri 21st April 2017 - 5:45 pm

Grant Wood - American Gothic - Google Art Project

Well, er, no. “America after the fall – Painting in the 1930s” is an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts which breathtakingly displays how public funding for the arts during a depression (let alone a recession) can work wonders. As part of President Roosevelt’s “New Deal”, the Federal Arts Project employed artists to create visual art works, which eventually included over a hundred thousand paintings as well as many sculptures and other works. Artists who benefited included Jackson Pollock. There were other New Deal art projects such as the Public Works of Art project, the Section of Painting and Sculpture and the Treasury Relief Art Project.

All these programmes helped to produce an extraordinary decade for American Art, which is reflected brilliantly in the Royal Academy exhibition, on until June 4th in Piccadilly, London.

What comes over is that the decade established a distinctive American Art world, which was finally free of reference to art elsewhere. There is an extraordinary variety of styles producing a most colourful and impactful exhibition, reflecting the profound changes going on in the USA at the time.

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Paul Walter

Soft Brexit Tory MPs who sign up for a hard Brexit manifesto will be responsible for an historic mistake

By Paul Walter | Fri 21st April 2017 - 12:06 pm

In August 2016, unusually, I made an appointment to see my MP. I wanted to talk to him about Britain, after Brexit, being part of the EEA and EFTA – in other words “a soft Brexit”.

My Conservative MP unequivocally explained that he campaigned for “remain”, his constituency voted “remain” and he wanted to salvage a good deal for local companies from Brexit. He spoke about making sure there are no extra barriers for local businesses exporting abroad. He enthusiastically received a paper I gave him from the Adam Smith Institute advocating EEA/EFTA membership after Brexit.

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The Voice

Alex Cole-Hamilton to chair Scottish Lib Dem General Election Campaign

By The Voice | Fri 21st April 2017 - 10:27 am

One of the party’s best ever campaigners has been chosen to chair the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ General Election campaign. Alex knows a lot about winning seats from the SNP after sensationally grabbing Edinburgh Western from them last year.

Alex  said:

I’m honoured to take on this important role for my party. We have a great grassroots organisation that is hungry for victory.

We have the wind in our sails and a hugely motivated activist base, keen to bring the party back to strength.

I can’t wait to get my teeth into the campaign.

Willie Rennie explained why he had chosen Alex:

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Edward Crabtree

I hope the Russians love their children too

By Edward Crabtree | Fri 21st April 2017 - 8:52 am

As I made my way to work I noticed an increased police presence on the Moscow Metro on that frosty April 3rd. A football match? Arriving there, I saw my Russian colleagues scrambling for their phones to call relatives in St Petersburg. A 22 year Kyrgyz-Russian Islamist had unleashed an improvised suicide bomb on a metro carriage near Sennaya Ploshad. The death toll has now come to fifteen, with forty-nine people injured.

When in November two years back terrorists laid siege to a night club in Paris, Muscovites lit up their Ostankino Radio tower in the French tricolour to express shared humanity; when St Petersburg’s atrocity occurred the Eiffel tower did not display the white-blue-red colours of the flag of the Russian Federation. Indeed, when there came a terrible, but less dramatic, attack in Stockholm four days later Russia’s loss seemed to become forgotten by the Western media.

Meanwhile the U.K seems intent on becoming what George Eaton, in the New Statesman, calls `Russia’s greatest foe`. The Tory government has sent out 800 troops and long-range missiles to Estonia. May, meanwhile, has discouraged M.Ps from attending Anglo-Russian parliamentary groups on grounds of the `security risk` (N.S, 11/4/17). Johnson – who Corbyn was right to call a `cold war warrior`- has reneged on a scheduled diplomacy mission to the Kremlin. This is at the same time that May is going cap in hand to the Saudis for trade deals!

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The Voice

GE 17: Key dates

By The Voice | Thu 20th April 2017 - 7:33 pm

The Electoral Commission have got off the mark pretty quickly and published their election timetable.

Key dates are:

Close of nominations: 4pm on 11 May 2017

Register to vote by: midnight on 22 May 2017

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Chris Bowers

Grasping the cross party nettle

By Chris Bowers | Thu 20th April 2017 - 5:55 pm

Whoops of delight and the whoosh of triumphant fists punching the air were apparently to be heard at Lib Dem HQ on Tuesday when Theresa May announced the 8 June election. For a party hammered so badly two years ago, the chance to regain some lost ground is indeed enticing, but if we’re to make the most of the opportunity some nettles need to be grasped.

Tempting though it is to believe in our invincibility based on recent by-election successes, we are still only around 11% in the polls. That will go up in certain seats, but our final total of MPs will depend on whether we’re willing to be smart, and to set aside the tribalism of past elections.

If you’re sick of terms like ‘progressive alliance’ or ‘cross-party cooperation’, fair enough. But then think of it like this: in an election that is going to defy traditional party allegiances because of the role of Brexit, we cannot adopt the old “my party right or wrong, and all other parties are the enemy” attitude. We have to think of the broader concept of liberalism, as well as openness, tolerance and internationalism.

That means recognising that there are plenty of people in other parties – largely Labour and the Greens – who are philosophically close to us. We may have issues with the Labour leadership, but that doesn’t stop us recognising that there are many good people in Labour. And while we believe we’re big on the environment, it helps to have a specifically environmental party to keep us all honest.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dem Membership: 8000 newbies in 48 hours

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 20th April 2017 - 5:02 pm

I think I’d better revise my “Guide to the Lib Dems for new members” post!

Welcome to all 8000 of you who have joined the party since the snap election was announced on Tuesday.

We hope you enjoy the next seven weeks which are bound to be intense. There is nothing like the whirlwind of an election!

This now means that party membership now stands at 95,000. If just 5000 more people join us, then that’s Tim Farron’s membership target for 2020 smashed.

Sal Brinton, our Party President, had this to say:

People are flocking to the Liberal Democrats as we are the only party who are offering effective opposition to this Conservative Brexit government.

Theresa May: we have the troops for this fight and they are raring to go.

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Tobie Abel

Don’t give the Tories a blank cheque

By Tobie Abel | Thu 20th April 2017 - 4:02 pm

The Tories demand the British people vote them a blank cheque at this election. They’re not telling you anything about their plans for Brexit negotiations, much less the compromises that will have to be made if any sort of deal is to be reached. And if you’re one of the millions who never voted for any sort of Brexit, hard or otherwise, the timing of this election guarantees your voice will be safely ignored.

The Tories know there is no chance of Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister, so they’re having an election now before they have to work out even the most basic details of what the Brexit deal will be. The UK negotiators have hard decisions to make around how much to compromise on movement of people in order to maintain some movement of goods and capital. How much to contribute to EU budgets in order to maintain access to EU research and security programmes. What EU laws to keep in order to trade with EU economies.

However, once they win this election they will be able to sign off on any agreement they want, or worse still walk away without any sort of deal, and there is nothing the British people will be able to do.

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A sign of things to come?

By Philip Knowles | Thu 20th April 2017 - 11:56 am

When you live in one of the safest Tory seats in the country and you get a phone call out of the blue from a life long Tory voter saying that he is prepared to campaign for the Lib Dems in the General Election you start to think that you’re dreaming!

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Posted in Op-eds | 14 Comments
Lord William Wallace

Lord (William) Wallace writes…Defining the issues in this election campaign

By Lord William Wallace | Thu 20th April 2017 - 10:50 am

One lesson of the Richmond Park by-election that we should all take account of in the coming general election is that those who call an election may lose control of the campaign. Zac Goldsmith chose to fight a by-election on the expansion of Heathrow airport. But he lost the election because voters found other issues – above all, Europe – mattered as much to them.

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