Caron Lindsay

Party members: Your chance to help shape the party’s strategy

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 7th April 2017 - 2:14 pm

Over the last couple of months, every Wednesday lunchtime and in another few meetings too, a group of us have been getting together to start the process of building the party’s future strategy which will be voted on at Autumn Conference in Bournemouth.

I don’t say very much in these groups because there are people much cleverer than me with much more useful things to say, but one of the things I wanted to make sure of from the start is that we involved members in the quest to shape our future direction. This is something that we must build together. It can’t be imposed. The group agreed that we would consult our members fully and we are doing just that.

The culmination of a lot of hard work popped into party members’ email inboxes late on Wednesday night. In the email, Party President Sal Brinton said:

At Spring Conference in York, our Leader Tim Farron outlined his vision for our Party:

“To replace the Labour Party as the main opposition to the Conservatives… so that we can replace the Conservatives as the Government of our country.”

This is a bold vision, which needs a bold strategy to deliver it.

We want to hear your views on how our Party can work to achieve Tim’s vision, and have set out some ideas of our own:

We want to hear your views on how our Party can work to achieve Tim’s vision, and have set out some ideas of our own:

We have also compiled an online survey for you to complete. It will only take a few minutes of your time.

Part of ensuring we deliver Tim’s vision is the need for every member to play their part to build a liberal society. Our country needs us now more than ever, and I know so many of you are taking part in some fantastic campaigns across the country, and I’m looking forward to seeing more gains on May 4th. So, don’t worry if you don’t have enough time to do it right now, because the closing date for the consultation is Monday 15th May at 12 noon.

We want to see an Open, Tolerant and United country, and we need you to help us build it.

In that email there is a unique link to the survey and a link to the consultation document. You’ll need to be logged in as a member on the party website to access it.

What we need you to do is basically mark our homework for us. We are bound to have missed something. What is it? Give us your feedback.

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Joan Walmsley

Baroness Joan Walmsley writes…150% rise in patients forced to move GP surgery as practice closures hit record levels

By Joan Walmsley | Fri 7th April 2017 - 11:55 am

One of the jewels in the NHS, for as long as I can remember, has been the family GP. My GP looked after my mother before I was born and looked after me until I moved away from home. In those days the GP’s long acquaintance with my whole family was important to us. Everyone had a “family doctor”. They even did home visits!

Things are very different now. We still have primary care and acute care, but many more community nurses, health visitors, therapists and care workers, not forgetting the wide range of services offered by community pharmacists and local authorities, where they can still afford it.

Demographic change and rising demand have put enormous pressure on GPs and, in some areas, people turn up at A&E rather than wait for an appointment. However, the role of the GP is still critical to the NHS and it is important that the system enables them to play their part in preventative medicine as well as diagnosis and signposting to other services.

Unfortunately, the demand for a seven-day service, without enough extra money to pay for it, and the enormous pressures on GPs time has made it a less attractive option for newly-qualified doctors. This has led to problems recruiting enough doctors to keep practices going and an increasing retention problem. Many GPs, especially partners who have extra duties and responsibilities compared to salaried GPs, are retiring early. In the last quarter of 2016, there was a net loss of 390 GPs in the NHS. This gives us no confidence in the government commitment to recruit 5000 more GP’s by 2020. According to the BMA, even the 5000 extra training places will only allow us to break even in GP numbers.

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Martin Horwood

Martin Horwood writes…Trump’s step into very dangerous waters

By Martin Horwood | Fri 7th April 2017 - 10:52 am

American bombing in Syria may make Donald Trump a hero on the streets of Idlib. Those fighting for simple democratic rights in Syria felt bitterly let down by the west in 2013 when we failed to take action the first time there was good evidence that the monstrous Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons on his own people.

We still live with the consequences of that inaction. We were warned our intervention against Assad might make the situation worse. The situation got worse anyway as Assad continued to kill his own people in their thousands with impunity. Millions fled their homes. The sudden rise of Isis/Daesh added a twisted new complication and cover for much larger-scale foreign intervention but by Russia instead of the west. But devastating Russian firepower was aimed much more frequently at the democratic rebels who were pounded into the ground at Aleppo. Increasingly it looked as though Assad’s relentless brutality had paid off and he could even get away with more chemical attacks in clear breach of international law.

So does this make Trump right to strike?

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems respond to US air strikes on Syria

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 7th April 2017 - 10:07 am

It was quite disconcerting to wake up this morning to see that Donald Trump had launched air strikes. There is no question that Syria needs to be dealt with. You just can’t have any government getting away with gassing its own people. I just feel uneasy about Donald Trump being in charge of this. Does he even have a proper strategy? I also feel uneasy about our Government just slipping into line behind him.

On Question Time last night, Tim Farron was talking about the importance of establishing no fly zones and of humanitarian aid, but made clear that doing nothing was not an option in the face of an attack as horrific as the one we saw earlier this week.

He has since described Trump’s action as “proportionate” but went on to say that our Government’s response was not sufficient:

The attack by American forces was a proportionate response to the barbarous attack by the Syrian government on its own people.

The British government rather than just putting out a bland statement welcoming this should now follow it up and call an emergency meeting of the Nato alliance to see what else can be done, be that more surgical strikes or no fly zones.

Evil happens when good people do nothing, we cannot sit by while a dictator gasses his own people. We cannot stand by, we must act.

I don’t always agree with what they say, but in situations like this, I always look for the views of three people: Paddy, Ming and Julie Smith

On Twitter, Paddy said:

I also had a conversation with Julie on Twitter:

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Hungary vs Soros

By Tom Arms | Fri 7th April 2017 - 8:55 am

As far as the proverbial man in the street is concerned, there is very little that separates the extreme right from the extreme left.

The results are the same: Power concentrated in the hands of a small circle of political leaders, suppression of human rights and academic freedom, political prisoners, torture, absence of a free press, no free speech, no freedom of assembly, rule by decree, corruption and politically-appointed judges presiding over show trials.

That is not say that there are no differences. There clearly are. The left tends to find its suppressive roots in an all-embracing ideology or – in some cases—a religion which claims to offer solutions to all of mankind’s problems. You need only embrace it.

The far right, on the other hand, is generally based on a belief that one nation or group of people are superior to all the others, and the inferior people should be treated accordingly. These are the ultra-nationalists.

Both groups are adept at conjuring up external threats to justify repression which is really aimed at controlling internal dissent. In modern history we can point to Hitler and the Jews, Stalin and capitalist West, McCarthy and the “Reds under the beds.”

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dem GAIN from UKIP in Aylesbury, hold in Bath and leapfrog Labour into second in safest Tory ward in Calderdale

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 6th April 2017 - 11:54 pm

Yes, you read that headline right. This is not a drill. We actually took a seat off UKIP in Aylesbur. Congratulations to Cllr Susan Morgan and her team for a cracking result.

It was one of these eye-watering vote share increases.

Fantastic.

In Walcot ward of Bath and North East Somerset Council, Richard Samuel handsomely increased the Lib Dem vote share to hold the seat.

Also up for a very large gin and tonic the next time we meet up is erstwhile Conference trouble maker Alisdair Calder McGregor who leapt into second place in the safest Tory ward in Calderdale. He was the only candidate whose party’s vote share actually went up.

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Bernard Aris

D66 leader makes waves taking a stand against anti-gay violence

By Bernard Aris | Thu 6th April 2017 - 1:28 pm

D66, the party that initiated a global wave of legalizing gay marriage, made itself the emblem of a day-long Dutch media craze that even extended to Dutch diplomats in London and at the UN in New York, as the Huffington Post reported.

It all started when two Dutch gay men, walking home hand in hand from their pub over the (in)famous bridge at Arnhem, were accosted by a group of youths (some of them around 14 years old), with one having four front teeth knocked out.

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Ryan Lailvaux

West of England: Five reasons to win with Williams

By Ryan Lailvaux | Thu 6th April 2017 - 11:24 am

The West of England Mayoral election is now only a month away. Here are five reasons to volunteer in the campaign.

1) It is a two-horse race
At the start of the campaign, the bookmakers Ladbrokes made Stephen the favourite to win with the Conservative candidate right on our heels. Notably, Labour and the Greens are completely out of the contest so we need to pick up all the progressive second preferences.

There is a real chance that the Liberal Democrats can win this newly created role. It is going to take a lot of enthusiasm to outcampaign the spending of the Conservatives but let us prove that the experts are worth listening to.

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George Kendall

Why aren’t our poll ratings higher?

By George Kendall | Thu 6th April 2017 - 9:16 am

On the train to Spring conference, as I was chatting with a student, I mentioned I was a Lib Dem. He said: “Aren’t they the party that saved the country, and then got destroyed because of it?”

My first thought was: “Wow! Student opinion has shifted since 2010.” But I also noted that he didn’t realise how much we’ve recovered since the last General Election.

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NewsHound

LibLink: Jackie Pearcey: Only the Lib Dems can stop a hard Brexit

By NewsHound | Wed 5th April 2017 - 6:17 pm

Writing on the Times Red Box site (£), Manchester Gorton’s brilliant Lib Dem candidate Jackie Pearcey has said that only the Lib Dems can offer national opposition to a hard brexit and take on a Labour Party which takes people for granted.

She outlines some of the ways that they have done so in Gorton – in a city where they have all but one councillor:

Residents here are also tired of being ignored by the Labour-run council, which has become a de facto one-party state. This constituency is full of proud communities, passionate about improving their area. I was proud to serve as a councillor here for 21 years, fighting hard with local people to protect green spaces and improve services.

Years of neglect by the council have taken their toll. Many of the roads now have more craters than a lunar landscape. A deeply unpopular decision to reduce bin sizes has led to an epidemic of fly-tipping. Small business owners are struggling with soaring rents. These are the symptoms of a Labour party that takes voters for granted and is more interested in spending cash on glitzy developments in the city centre than investing in the neglected suburbs.

A Labour win would let them off the hook, she says:

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The Voice

Yeovil UKIP candidates blame NHS crisis on women doctors

By The Voice | Wed 5th April 2017 - 4:45 pm

If you listen to most experts, the reason for the crisis in the NHS comes from under-resourcing and an aging population. But, no, UKIP council candidates in Chard in Yeovil have come up with another explanation. It’s all the fault of women doctors and their career breaks and part-time doctors.  Buzzfeed has the story:

The leaflet was produced by local UKIP councillors in Somerset who suggest alleged positive discrimination in the GP hiring process could ultimately lead to local surgeries closing altogether.

“How many female Doctors are there in your surgery working 2 or 3 days a week?” it asks, warning the issue could result in thousands of patients being left without access to medical care when GPs retire.

They have a quote from Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Yeovil, Daisy Benson:

UKIP might wish we were living in the 1950s, but it’s 2017!

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David Hopps

Brexit related divisiveness mars school exchange visit

By David Hopps | Wed 5th April 2017 - 3:15 pm

Three Spanish Exchange students have descended on our home this week. Full of fun, responsive and impeccably mannered, it has been a pleasure to have them around. About parts of their experience in England, though, it is impossible to be so complimentary.

Their looks of bemusement have grown ever stronger during the week as the farcical events surrounding Gibraltar have unfolded.

Firstly, they watched in amazement as a former Tory leader – not a rogue backbencher, a former leader – envisaged a situation in which Britain would sent a Task Force, Union Jacks waving and bugles blowing, to defend the future of the island.

Walking round the supermarket, they stumbled across the front page of The Sun with its headline “Up Yours Senors”, although I suppose we should be mildly relieved that the paper fell short of calling for all-out war.

If they go back to the supermarket today, they can check out the Daily Mail with its tale of how a “Tiny Royal Navy patrol vessel chases giant Spanish gunboat out of British waters.”

Two newspapers which have done so much damage to the culture of the nation.

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Caron Lindsay

Vince Cable to liberals: Don’t despair, go local, celebrate identities and embrace social democratic policies

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 5th April 2017 - 1:45 pm

Last night, Vince Cable gave the annual John G Gray Lecture to the Scottish Liberal Club in Edinburgh. John G Gray was a leading Scottish figure in the fightback from near extinction in the middle of the last century. He was at one point the only Liberal councillor in Scotland. Vince observed that at the same time as he was successfully fighting a ridiculous proposal for a ring road in Glasgow, Gray was doing the same in Edinburgh, making sure that a proposal that would have damaged much of the city’s heritage never came to fruition.

The subject of his talk was Brexit, Trump and the Crisis of Liberalism. He set out four things that we should do to stop the “insidious” politics of populism and nationalism taking root.

Firstly, he looked at some of the reasons for populism taking hold. History has many examples, from the South Sea Bubble, to the Depression to the 2008 crash, of economic heart attacks being followed after some years by populism. When people lose out, they turn to the extremes and we have over the past decade seen the fall in post war living standards. Significantly, the measures used to keep the economy afloat, low interest rates and quantitative easing, ensured that pensioners’ savings didn’t grow. That resulted in discontent and nostalgia became a powerful emotional driver.

He warned that as the populists fail, the search for a scapegoat would turn on the judiciary and the other elements which underpin our democracy. He highlighted the Daily Fail’s talk of the enemy within – where the Lib Dems were top of the list. Populists do what they can to delegitimise anything that gets in their way. 

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John Leech

John Leech writes: Come and help deliver a knockout blow to Labour and hard Brexit in Gorton

By John Leech | Wed 5th April 2017 - 12:05 pm

Having spent the last few weeks delivering leaflets and talking to residents in Manchester Gorton I wanted to share my thoughts on the by-election.

Manchester Gorton presents a huge opportunity for us as a party. The response that we are getting for our candidate, Jackie Pearcey, is really very impressive. I have been struck by the number of people who have told me on the doorstep how much better their local area was when they were represented by local Lib Dem Councillors like Jackie. This is a constituency that voted 65% remain, had 19 out of 21 Lib Dem Councillors just a few years ago and where we used to get a very substantial vote at the general election. This is a real chance to show that we can do to Labour in Manchester what we did to the Tories in Witney. We are the only party that is openly campaigning against Theresa May’s Hard Brexit agenda in this election. The Labour candidate even said he agreed with Corbyn to 3 line whip the vote to trigger article 50!

Quite simply the only barrier to us winning this seat right now is people not thinking we can win and not coming to help. When we won Manchester Withington in 2005 our biggest challenge was persuading people that the effort there was worthwhile. In Manchester Gorton it really is. This is our opportunity to deliver a knockout blow to Labour and show up their hypocrisy on Brexit. Getting a good result in Manchester Gorton improves the chances for all of us facing Labour in elections in the future.

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NewsHound

LibLink: Tom Brake: The Westminster Attack was an assault on democracy, let it not be an assault on freedom too

By NewsHound | Wed 5th April 2017 - 11:26 am

Tom Brake wrote for The House magazine about the threats to civil liberties in the wake of the Westminster attacks. He said that the appropriate response to the horror was:

What the attacker sought to do in his rampage was to instil fear and division, erode our democracy, shake confidence in our institutions and rupture our way of life. Our response must be more unity, more democracy, and steadfast humanity in the face of evil. We must always counter hate with love. We will remain open, tolerant and united.

The article was written before Amber Rudd effectively conceded that she had been talking rubbish about encryption, but he highlighted why that was a bad idea and went on to talk about how the sweeping powers the Government had given itself could be absued in the wrong hands:

The bigger issue, of course, is this will not be effective. The 2015 Paris attacks were planned on non-encrypted burner phones, and the attackers were known to the authorities. The issue was the lack of police resources to track potential criminals, not the lack of access to encrypted messages. And drowning our intelligence services in a mountain of irrelevant data is unlikely to help, as the Danes recently discovered.

The Snooper’s Charter was a startling overreach when it was voted through last year, and this would be a horrifying extension of it. Few of us would give the government a key to our house to look through our drawers without a court warrant, and we must be careful to treat our online belongings with the same respect.

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Paul Walter

Easter egg hunt furore – something of the ridiculous?

By Paul Walter | Wed 5th April 2017 - 9:56 am

Can you see the word “Easter” in the image above? The image is a screenshot of the National Trust website for its Easter activity.

Yet, Theresa May saw fit to interrupt her visit to Saudi Arabia to criticise Cadbury’s and the National Trust for calling the activity an “Egg Hunt” rather than a “Easter Egg Hunt” – even though Easter is emblazoned above the title.

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Caron Lindsay

The shameless Lib Dem Press Office Easter Egg grab

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 5th April 2017 - 9:14 am

As Theresa May went all Donald Trump on us by playing up to traditional Tory supporters  and focusing on an irrelevant and inaccurate news report about Easter eggs to distract us from the general chaos of her Government, The Liberal Democrat Press Office quietly went about providing commentary on the actual big issues of the day.

Our press team highlighted contradictory remarks by Philip Hammond and Boris Johnson. Boris was doing his best “It’ll be fine if we don’t get a brexit deal” in Germany, while Hammond said that we needed one to protect our economy in India. Tim Farron commented:

This Government is in utter chaos over Brexit. Philip Hammond says one thing in India, then is immediately contradicted by Boris Johnson in Germany.

It seems it’s not just some in the Chancellor’s own party who don’t want a deal on Brexit – it’s some in his own cabinet.

Theresa May should clarify whether she still believes that no deal is better than a bad deal, and if she agrees with her Chancellor of her Foreign Secretary.

The Brexiteers need to drop the bluster and bravado and admit that crashing out of the EU without a deal would be a disaster for our economy.

Tom Brake reminded us of the failings of the Philippines leader as Liam Fox was about to pay a visit:

Duterte is one of the 21st century’s most sinister leaders and Liam Fox has flown halfway around the world to grovel to him.  The fact that the first visit made by Fox since triggering Article 50 is to the Philippines shows just how low this government is willing to stoop in order to secure even a minimal trade deal in the future.

According to UK trade statistics, the value of our exports to the Philippines are just £500 million a year- to put this into context our total international trade is currently over £28 billion a month.

So not only is Fox blind to the horrific human rights abuses and endemic corruption in the Philippines, he’s also clearly oblivious to the actual realities of doing trade with them.

No amount of pandering to corrupt regimes can replace our membership of the Single Market, which is why the Liberal Democrats will continue to fight against the hard, divisive Brexit this government is pursuing.

If, like me, you’ve noticed that things seem to cost more when you do your food shopping, you’d be right. Prices in supermarkets have gone up by 2.3% in the last three months according to research. Susan Kramer said:

Shoppers are feeling the Brexit squeeze, with prices rising while real wages continue to fall.

This is only set to get worse as the Government continues with its reckless plans to damage our economy by pulling Britain out of the Single Market.

It’s not too late to stop a hard Brexit and prevent a long-term squeeze to people’s living standards.

The British people must be given the final say over what comes next. They can choose to keep Britain in the Single Market, and if they want, to remain in the European Union.

This was just a fraction of their output on the serious stuff yesterday.

However, they couldn’t resist a wee foray into Egg-gate. They are human, after all. How many egg analogies can you get into one press release? I was slightly disappointed that they didn’t get hard-boiled in there, given that that’s what we traditionally do with them at Easter, but I did smile.

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Peter Scott Brooks

Brexit De-metrification: Inching our way to the periphery

By Peter Scott Brooks | Tue 4th April 2017 - 9:11 am

As predictably as UKIP politicians dressing in tweed, calls to return to Imperial measurements have being doing the rounds in the media within days of Theresa May triggering Article 50. Whilst this may sound trivial, the passion and practicality runs very deep.

The Active Resistance to Metrification has removed or vandalised thousands of metric road signs. The “metric martyrs” championed in sections of the press, sold goods illegally using only Imperial measurements. At the same time we currently use the same metric units as the counties we have over 90% of our overseas trade with, a boon to the ‘frictionless trade’ that our Prime Minister wants. And they won’t be changing units just because of our Brexit!

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The Voice

Tom Brake on human rights in Saudi Arabia

By The Voice | Mon 3rd April 2017 - 7:39 pm

Tom Brake has written a letter to the Prime Minister urging her to raise human rights issues in her meeting with Saudi Arabia.

Here is the letter:

Dear Theresa,

I am writing in advance of your visit to Saudi Arabia tomorrow, to ask you to raise urgently with the regime a number of serious human rights concerns.

1. The targeting of civilians in Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition
According to the United Nations, over 7,600 people have been killed and 42,000 injured since fighting began in March 2015, the majority in airstrikes led by the Saudi coalition. The conflict and a blockade imposed by the coalition have also triggered a humanitarian disaster, leaving 70% of the population in need of aid, including millions on the verge of famine.

The Saudi coalition, in contravention of humanitarian law, has repeatedly targeted civilians, including at funerals, weddings and in market places.

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Chris Key

War with Spain over Gibraltar?

By Chris Key | Mon 3rd April 2017 - 5:28 pm

 

Normally I try to switch off on holiday. I am in the Canary Islands with my family. When I switched on my Twitter feed I nearly choked on my cafe con leche after reading Lord Howard’s comments about Gibraltar.

Today was the 35th Anniversary of the start of the Falklands war and should have been a day to remember the dead and learn from the past. Yet instead Lord Howard used an interview on a Sunday politics program to remind people of what Thatcher did in 1982 and support a similar reaction in relation to Gibraltar.

This was wrong at so many levels. As my wife who is from Argentina said, how can someone of his experience make a comparison between the military junta of Argentina in 1982 and the democratically elected government of Mariano Rajoy.

Secondly, we want to set up trade deals with the EU and other Latin American countries. Does Lord Howard think that being the class room bully  will help us to enter this wonderful global world we are told by Brexiteers was created on June 24, 2016 ?

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Sean Williams

Post-referendum positivity isn’t foolish

By Sean Williams | Mon 3rd April 2017 - 3:52 pm

I was taken in by Saturday’s April 1st joke on the pages of The Liberal Democrat Voice: that we should stop “remoaning”, and be a bit more positive about the Brexit process.  No doubt some readers will call me foolish, but I absolutely agreed with the thrust of the article. After all, many a true word’s spoken in jest…

So here are three reasons for my optimism:

1) Moving past the romanticism of the EU would help, not hinder a more pragmatic pro-European cause. During both the referendum and the period before Article 50 was triggered, extreme arguments flourished on both sides: a nostalgia for British Imperialism or a desire for “Singapore on steroids” on the one hand, and too romantic an image of the EU on the other. Having lived in Europe — both in the EU and in Switzerland — I am surprised at how much fellow Liberal Democrats idealise the EU as an organisation. One that, in the romantic story, has simply enabled individuals across the continent to lead freer lives, become more open-minded, and move beyond ugly nationalism. Now that Article 50 has been triggered, the negotiations will pour cold water on so much idealism — on both sides of the Brexit divide.

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Arnold Kiel

Meet the new Brexit actors: facts, realism, truth

By Arnold Kiel | Mon 3rd April 2017 - 2:33 pm

 

“This is an historic moment from which there can be no turning back.” If the second part of the PM’s sentence had been true, there would have been no need to state it. Therefore it isn’t. Revocation of Article 50 by a British Government would be the ultimate vote of confidence in the EU. Europe would never pass on that opportunity. Therefore the campaign continues.

In the first phase of the Brexit-campaign until now, Leave’s weapons (unsubstantiated dreams, outright lies, fraudulent slogans, the opinion press), were more effective than Remain’s (appreciation of a status quo, plausible but uncertain projections, the information press).

The EU will conduct the negotiations publicly, and thereby also force the UK Government into the open. All dreams, lies and slogans will be exposed; Remain will rearm with powerful, hitherto unavailable or ineffective weapons: facts, realism and truth.

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Callum Gurr

Talk about economics, or we’ll be back to the party of the 8%    

By Callum Gurr | Mon 3rd April 2017 - 12:36 pm

 

I was delighted by Tim Farron’s performance at Spring Conference this year; his eloquence and passionate words show a good leader moulding into a great one. Yet, there is one thing that Tim’s speech missed: a distinct view upon the economy. The need for a Liberal Democrat policy on the economy is clear, with Tim himself saying in the speech ‘Britain needs a progressive party… a plan for an economy that makes the most of the opportunities in front of us’.

To put it short the Liberal Democrats need a clear economic policy so that when we get back into government (whether that’s in 2020 or 40 years away) that our voters know what they voted for. To my mind, we must focus upon investment. That investment starts with taking money creation away from high street banks and making it a government-influenced mechanism, as I called for in a previous article. Only then can we invest in our economy without extending the web of debt Britons and Britain find themselves in.

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Geoffrey Payne

We don’t need a NEW pro EU party

By Geoffrey Payne | Mon 3rd April 2017 - 10:25 am

 

Ever since the referendum vote to leave the EU last year there has been feverish speculation about the need to set up a new political party. Yet 9 months have gone by and nothing has so far emerged. I would suggest that they have missed the boat. Thousands have already joined the pro-EU parties, notably the Lib Dems and the new party missed the opportunity to recruit them.

Even if it had been set up 9 months ago, would it have worked? Some see a parallel with the SDP formed in 1981 by the “Gang of 4”; Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen and Bill Rodgers. It is worth recalling that they were all substantial political figures in their day. Had any one of them won the Labour leadership back then they would have mounted a far more serious challenge to the Tory government led by Margaret Thatcher. Instead Labour elected Michael Foot who was doomed to fail and Roy Jenkins led the SDP which brought in 50,000 new members (the Liberals had 100,000+), but in alliance with the Liberal party despite polling 26% of the popular vote they were crushed by the voting system and eventually had to merge with the Liberal party (and hence the Lib Dems of today).

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Duncan Brack

Federal Policy Committee Report – 29 March 2017

By Duncan Brack | Mon 3rd April 2017 - 8:54 am

FPC’s meetings tend to be dominated by two things: consideration of consultation and policy papers, which are ultimately put to conference for discussion and debate; and trying to find ways to improve the process of policy-making and policy discussion within the party. Last Wednesday’s meeting featured both.

For the first hour or so of the meeting we discussed our responses to two of the consultation papers we published in February, on the 21st Century Economy, and on Education. The working groups which wrote the papers for us will take our comments, along with the many received from party members and made at the consultative sessions at York, into consideration when they write their policy papers for the FPC to consider in June or July. The final papers will then be submitted to the Bournemouth conference in September for debate.

The rest of the meeting was mainly devoted to process issues. FPC is keen to improve the opportunities for debating policy within the party. While plenty of policy debates take place at federal and state conferences, at the local party level it’s quite variable. Many local parties run popular and effective pizza and politics events (or their culinary equivalents), but in others their efforts may be entirely taken up with campaigning and fund-raising. We believe policy debate is good in itself: it improves members’ experience of involvement in the party (after all, it’s the reason many members joined) and their knowledge of what we stand for, and it improves input into the formal policy-making process which FPC oversees.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems could gain 100 seats at local elections: Rallings and Thrasher

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 2nd April 2017 - 9:45 pm

Professors Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher have predicted that the Liberal Democrats could gain 100 seats in the County Council election, twice as many as the Tories are predicted to gain. They also say that Labour will lose 50 seats and UKIP 100.

From the Sunday Times (£):

Thrasher and Rallings predict that Ukip’s vote will collapse from 22% to 10% — and that the Tory vote will rise five points to 31%.

Rallings said: “The Tories will benefit from Ukip’s decline, but could themselves lose seats to the Lib Dems.

“The Lib Dems will be looking to take seats from both Tories and Labour as they claw their way back from the humiliation of the 2015 general election. In local elections they benefit from an ability to mobilise support on the ground.”

The last time those seats were fought, we lost 124, so even that sort of spectacular rise wouldn’t take us back to where we are in 2009.

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Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #475

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 2nd April 2017 - 9:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 475th 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 (26 March – 1 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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The Voice

Farron on “ludicrous” Brexiteer sabre rattling over Gibraltar

By The Voice | Sun 2nd April 2017 - 4:37 pm

It’s quite incredible how we’ve gone from an Article 50 letter that makes scant reference to Gibraltar to a Tory Brexiteer suggesting that Theresa May would show the same attitude to the British territory as Margaret Thatcher did to the Falklands.  Seriously.

This isn’t just some random right-wing Tory cheerleader. It’s a former Leader of the Opposition, for goodness’ sake. Michael Howard told Sophy Ridge, according to the Guardian:

Thirty-five years ago this week, another woman prime minister sent a taskforce halfway across the world to defend the freedom of another small group of British people against another Spanish-speaking country, and I’m absolutely certain that our current prime minister will show the same resolve in standing by the people of Gibraltar.

Tim Farron had this to say:

It is unbelievable that within a week of triggering Article 50 there are Conservatives already discussing potential wars with our European neighbours.

In only a few days the Conservative-right are turning long term allies into potential enemies. I hope this isn’t a sign of the Government’s approach to the long negotiations to come

Brexiteers have gone from cheering to sabre rattling for war in four days, it is absolutely ludicrous.

Paddy Ashdown said on Twitter:

I am old enough to remember when the border between Gibraltar and Spain was closed and what that meant for people on either side of it. Both countries being in the EU had enabled a mutually agreeable solution, an open border and 10,000 citizens of Gibraltar  now working in Spain. The family and social ties forged during the last three decades of free travel are now as much as threat as the economic ones.

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 34 Comments
Paul Walter

Freddie Flintoff, Professor Green, Ruby Wax and others talk about their mental health issues

By Paul Walter | Sun 2nd April 2017 - 2:56 pm

Over the years, here at Liberal Democrat Voice, we have strongly publicised Time to Talk day. On the same theme, the charity campaign Heads Together are publishing a series of videos on YouTube where famous and not famous people talk about their mental health issues.

It really is good to see role models opening up about their problems. Below, you’ll find three of the videos. In the top one, Stephen Manderson (aka Professor Green) and Freddie Flintoff talk. Next down, Ruby Wax talks with her husband, TV producer Ed Bye.

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The Voice

LDV’s Sunday Best: our 7 most-read articles this week

By The Voice | Sun 2nd April 2017 - 1:27 pm

7 bestMany thanks to the  13.500 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…

Catherine Bearder MEP writes: Why we want to let Brits keep their EU citizenship after Brexit (14 comments) by Catherine Bearder

The UK’s ritual humiliation of disabled people Part 2: The PIP Interview (16 comments) by Geoff Crocker

 So this is how Jeremy Corbyn will be holding Theresa May to account on Brexit (41 comments) by The Voice

A whole load of love for the Lib Dem Press Office (15 comments) by Caron Lindsay

Liberal Democrat Voice gets over its trauma and moves on (25 comments) by The Voice

The Observer on a hard Brexit (18 comments) by The Voice

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