Caron Lindsay

Today at Scottish Conference -“Turning back the tide of division”

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 10th March 2017 - 8:48 am

Scottish Liberal Democrats gather in Perth today for our Spring Conference. Some of us gathered last night and enjoyed a delicious meal in a French restaurant. Sorry if I breathe garlic fumes on everybody I meet today.

We meet just seven weeks before every council seat in Scotland is up for election. A better than expected result in last year’s Holyrood elections, with solid parliamentary work on mental health, education and justice since has heartened the party but the national opinion polls are yet to show any significant movement in our favour.  The political environment up here is very different from south of the border where we have the advantage of being the only party standing up against the Tory and Labour compete with each other to get to the Brexit cliff first.

Up here, the SNP are making a great deal out of the fact that Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain. Of course they are going to use it to call for independence although even a former nationalist leader said this week that they were being forced into it at the worst possible time.

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Caron Lindsay

Yet another Lib Dem GAIN from the Conservatives

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 10th March 2017 - 7:47 am

Good news – coming to you a little later than usual due to me drinking wine with my friends in the bar at the Scottish Conference hotel – from Oxfordshire.

Well done to Kieran Mullins and his team for that amazing swing.

The rest of the by-elections were a clean sweep for the Tories – but there were some healthy vote share increases for us.

Philip Vial was our candidate here.

Joanna Burrows fought the Exton Ward in Rutland:

Derwent ward in Derby was a Conservative gain from UKIP so I suspect that tactical voting was in play here, affecting our Simon Ferrigno’s vote.

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Stephen Tall

LibDemVoice Fantasy Football League: manager of the month for February

By Stephen Tall | Thu 9th March 2017 - 4:55 pm

Our seventh update from the LDV Fantasy Football League. Congratulations to Nick Davies, our Manager of the Month for February.

His Wenger’s 2nd XI showed themselves more effective than Wenger’s first 11, topping our league with an impressive 217 points, a little ahead of Andrew Hydon’s the treble c’s (209) and Michael Brown’s Mike’s Dream Team (208).

In the overall league table, Alain Desmier’s Mountgrove Maulers (1564 points) continue to dominate, some way ahead of nearest rival Richard Campbell’s Dick Dastardly FC (1504).

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Rob May

Lynne Featherstone interview Part 1: Early life and influences

By Rob May | Thu 9th March 2017 - 2:55 pm

As Minister for Equalities in the recent coalition government, Lynne Featherstone was the originator and architect of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013. She has received various accolades and awards for her work on equalities. In his book Gay Shorts (2015), the former Conservative Party politician turned broadcaster and member of the LGBT community, Iain Dale said that:

Same-sex marriage will be associated with Lynne Featherstone in the same way that we associate David Steel with the 1967 Abortion Act and Roy Jenkins with the legalisation of homosexuality.

In the hours following the icy gales of Storm Doris, I caught up with Lynne at Taunton’s most distinguished hotel, The Castle. The previous evening, she spoke at a party fundraiser in East Devon. After our interview, she was heading off to another commitment,as the guest speaker at the Bridgwater and West Somerset Liberal Democrats annual dinner. She is certainly a woman in demand! Among the bustling crowd of Saturday night revellers, who were making good use of the historic hotel’s bar and restaurant, Lynne and I managed to find a table and a couple of chairs, tucked away in a reasonably quiet corner.

In the hour that I had with the Lib Dem peer, I wanted to cover a lot of ground. Obviously, the subject of her new book Equal Ever After was going to dominate much of the conversation. Besides the same sex marriage bill, I wanted to find out more about the former MP and her life before  and after her time as Minister.

You are a north London girl, could you tell me a bit about your childhood?

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Edward Crabtree

The amber kickstart

By Edward Crabtree | Thu 9th March 2017 - 1:30 pm

The slough of despond which we find ourselves in comprises not just being severed from 49 parliamentary seats two years ago, but the backdrop to this: one where social democratic and liberal endeavours are losing their credibility throughout Western Europe. A well-timed response to the cultural aspect of this was posted last February calling for a `counter-narrative` of our own `myths and stories`. Here are some of my pointers at not letting the devil have all the best tunes.

To get some visceral appeal some have proposed that we embrace some kind of English patriotism, others that the call for `Freedom` should be our watchword. Richard Dawkins has opined that we rebrand ourselves as the` European party`. All of these ideas – as interesting as they are – strike me as a search for shortcuts. Yet, as Roland Barthes said  `The key to the treasure is the treasure`.

We only need to enhance what we are – a newish party with a left but non-authoritarian ethos  –and to do so with style.

Being non-conformist and rationalist type people, Liberal Democrats tend to spurn style as being pomp and circumstance. Thus along have come the trendy neo-righties – the Bo Jos and the Farages – who have been able to portray themselves as human and anti-pomposity. The liberal love of thinking aloud, of diversity and informality is just not coming across. Somehow we have to prove that being popular need not involve being populist.

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George Osborn

Get in the game – why the Liberal Democrats must be champions for the video games industry

By George Osborn | Thu 9th March 2017 - 11:53 am

The government should be celebrating the success of the British video games industry.  With the British market valued at £4.2bn in 2016, making it the biggest market in the entire creative sector, the video games industry achieves the double whammy of being both lucrative and a shining light for other growth sectors.

The games industry is spread across the country, with over a dozen thriving clusters popping up in places like Bristol, Liverpool and Dundee.  The success of the industry has drawn in the biggest names from gaming, with EA, Sony, Bethesda and Nintendo just some of the companies setting up shop in London. It’s companies also think globally, with British games selling brilliantly across the world.

However, the success story is being ignored government circles because of an uncomfortable truth: it’s dead set against Brexit.

In a survey carried out prior to the referendum, 80.6% of businesses came out in favour of remain compared to just 3.2% for leave.  And in a new report commissioned by UKIE, which drew on survey responses and research conducted in nationwide roundtables (one of which I attended), the industry has revealed that it favours the softest exit possible.

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Edwin Moriarty

Are we spending enough on our military?

By Edwin Moriarty | Thu 9th March 2017 - 10:25 am

I recently attended a seminar led by a specialist in international relations, and one of those attending asked “How likely do you think it is that the UK will fight a conventional war in the next ten years?”. Without any hesitation the reply came: “Almost certain.”

It’s hard to avoid noticing the changing political environment we find ourselves, both at home and abroad. For the first time in decades, the prospect of large-scale non-nuclear war seems plausible (though President Trump seems keen on removing “non-nuclear” from that equation). Russia’s aggressive actions can’t be written off as isolated incidents, and the situation in the Middle East is even worse than it was a decade ago.

It’s very likely that, due to aggression against us or our allies we will be at war again in the not too distant future. As someone who has always fancied themselves a pacifist, this is all a bit depressing, but it would be naive to think that my wishes have any impact on reality. It seems important, therefore, that we continue to meet our spending commitments to NATO, however many reservations we have about the use of military force.

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Mark Argent

The other side of Brexit: What about the Leavers?

By Mark Argent | Thu 9th March 2017 - 8:55 am

I’m increasingly conscious that one really important group has become invisible in the storm around Brexit: the people who actually voted for it.

Canvassing recently my ear was firmly bent by someone who voted Leave and is worried about the NHS. The promise of £350 million per week might have evaporated on the morning after the referendum, but her concerns have not. She’s not angry at the lie: for her this is just one more in the chain of politicians’ lies. The worry is real.

One of the memorable moments in  Laura  Kuenssberg’s documentary on the referendum had  Leave voters  in Sunderland saying “now people in London have got to listen to us”.

Instead we have a prime minister saying “Brexit means Brexit” and talking of the “will of the people”, but who reacted to being reigned in by the courts by bring a bill before parliament to give her huge powers in the Brexit process. This sounds like a land grab from No.10 rather than an attempt at listening.

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The Voice

Inspiring women: Sarah Olney MP

By The Voice | Wed 8th March 2017 - 10:00 pm

How brilliant was it at 3 whatever it was in the morning of 1st December when Sarah Olney was declared the MP for Richmond Park? She certainly deserves to be acclaimed as one of this year’s inspiring Lib Dem women. Her speech at the count, full of liberal principle, got many of us in the gut.

Last week, she spoke for the party in the International Women’s Day Debate in the Commons. Here is her speech in full:

May I say how pleased I am to represent the Liberal Democrats in this debate on International Women’s Day, as the 454th female MP? I am proud to say, in contrast to some previous Members’ contributions, that I am not the first, nor even the second, woman to have held my seat. I am, in fact, the third Liberal Democrat woman to represent Richmond Park, and I am extremely proud of that.

One of the advantages of being a London MP is that I get to go home to my family every evening and spend time with them every morning. As the mother of young children, this is a particular blessing to me, but it does mean that I live a life of contrasts. Yesterday, for example, I spent the first part of the morning trying to get my son to clean his teeth and my daughter to brush her hair. I then travelled into Westminster and challenged the Prime Minister in the Chamber about her spending priorities for education. Of the two things, the latter was more remarked upon—it was heard by Members here, recorded in Hansard and shared on Twitter—but getting my son to clean his teeth was the greater achievement in many ways. It took more ingenuity, effort and emotional commitment, but nobody noticed, cared or applauded me for it.

It often sounds ironic or self-deprecating to refer to the tasks of motherhood as being more taxing than tasks carried out in the professional sphere, but in this case, I am not being ironic; it is precisely true. We are so used to underplaying the work we do as mothers and in the home that we do not think anyone will take us seriously if we talk seriously about it. So today, in the spirit of the motion to recognise the achievements of women, I want to celebrate the everyday, unacknowledged, unrewarded and unnoticed achievements of women.

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Caron Lindsay

Real women

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 8th March 2017 - 8:45 pm

One of the things I really wanted to say on this International Women’s Day is that it’s a day to celebrate all women, to think about the various barriers that women face across the world. Women have all sorts of different experiences and it’s important that they are listened to because it’s by understanding what needs to change that we make the world a better place. Quite a simple concept. It’s also, for me, a simple concept that International Women’s Day is for everyone who identifies as a woman. No exceptions.

I say that because Women’s Hour presenter Jenni Murray wrote one of those “I’m not transphobic but” articles in the Sunday Times this week. She questioned the right of transgender women to identify as “real women.” She justified her argument by talking about transgender women saying things she didn’t agree with. One was a vicar who had talked about clothes and the other had said that women should wear high heels and shave their body hair. Apparently they were “playing into the stereotype – a man’s idea of what a woman should be.”

I would suggest that this was nothing to do with being transgender. I’ve heard cis women express similar views.  It was only in the last decade of her working life that my mother felt able to wear trousers to work. I might utterly disagree with their opinion, but I’m not going to question anyone’s identity.

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Caron Lindsay

Inspiring Lib Dem Women: Jennie Rigg

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 8th March 2017 - 7:58 pm

Jennie Rigg is one of my favourite people on the planet. The former Chair of Calderdale Lib Dems is a plain-speaking, hilarious Yorkshire woman who has lit up the Lib Dem end of the blogosphere for getting on for a decade. She is one of these people who can express really complicated concepts that tie some up in knots in a way that the reader can really relate to. She comments regularly on here and is very good at explaining the barriers that women and people of colour and other marginalised groups face.

She made a brilliant speech at Conference in the social security debate last year blowing apart the arguments for the maintenance of some sort of sanctions regime.

I really have to think about it when I disagree with her because her instincts are liberal to her core. We have had some fairly robust arguments on these comparatively few issues but can go down the pub for a pint afterwards. Apart from lib demmy stuff, we both share a passion for our doggies, Doctor Who and gin.

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The Voice

Inspiring Lib Dem Women: Kelly-Marie Blundell

By The Voice | Wed 8th March 2017 - 7:01 pm

On this International Women’s Day, we are celebrating some inspiring Lib Dem Women.

Since being selected PPC for Lewes, which requires just a 1% swing to take it back from the Tories, Kelly-Marie Blundell has been a campaigning force, increasing the local membership, helping to elect four new Lib Dem councillors in by-elections, campaigning against Brexit and just this Saturday collecting an impressive 700 signatures for the rights of resident EU citizens.

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The Voice

Inspiring Lib Dem Women: The women who chair our state and federal parties

By The Voice | Wed 8th March 2017 - 6:42 pm

For the first time in our history, women are at the helm of all three state parties and the federal party.

Of course, Sal Brinton is our federal party President. I am constantly in awe of her seemingly endless patience as she has to navigate all the different interest groups in the party and bring them all together to agree on a way forward.

I shudder to think how many hundreds of thousands of miles she has travelled in her two an a bit years as President through a General Election, Welsh and Scottish elections and visiting every by-election. She spent a few days in Cornwall the other week boosting their county council campaign and then popped up in Stoke several times – including the gruelling all night shift.

As well as all this she puts in some considerable work in the Lords. Watch her speak here on the effect that Brexit will have on health and social care.

On International Women’s Day, it is appropriate to recognise her work in protecting her students from harassment by introducing considerate conduct contracts for construction workers.

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Caron Lindsay

Inspiring Lib Dem women: Elaine Bagshaw

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 8th March 2017 - 5:28 pm

Today on International Women’s Day, we are celebrating some fantastic Lib Dem Women.

Remember back in 2015 after that devastating General Election when we all just wanted to hide under our duvets and make the next five years go away? Well, Elaine Bagshaw didn’t have time to do that, because she had to fly the Lib Dem flag in the Tower Hamlets mayoral by-election caused by the disqualification of the previous incumbent.

She made progress in that election and since then she has led her local party from strength to strength. As the candidate for Poplar and Limehouse, she is out there campaigning most days. Her local party membership is over 550 and she is working hard for her community. Late one recent Saturday night, she featured on local Bengali channel NTV talking about the Lib Dem perspective on Brexit and Trump and did such a good job of explaining our position.

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Caron Lindsay

Making women’s work visible

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 8th March 2017 - 3:52 pm

As Kirsten pointed out earlier, women do the lion’s share of unpaid caring work.

In Scotland, Engender, an organisation dedicated to advancing the cause of gender equality, is concentrating this International Wonen’s Day and throughout 2017, on that work that women do that often doesn’t get credited or appreciated. Today they have been asking women to tell others about that unrecognised work using the hashtag #MakingWorkVisible. Why not join in? I thought today was going to be a quiet day until I filled in their survey and realised how much of my day was going to be spent looking after the other members, human and canine, of my household,

Here’s a video they originally published a few years ago which shows how women’s work is marginalised:

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NewsHound

LibLink: Miriam Gonzalez Durantez: I don’t want my 3 sons to grow up in a world where girls feel second rate

By NewsHound | Wed 8th March 2017 - 2:45 pm

Another Lib Dem woman who inspires many – in fact, she makes a mission of Inspiring Women is Miriam Gonzalez Durantez.

She has written for the Telegraph about the need for men and women to work together to make life better for the next generation of boys and girls.

She outlines the threats to hard-won progress:

In the US, President Donald Trump is putting into question women’s reproductive rights; in Russia, laws are being considered to decriminalise some aspects of domestic violence.

Just last week, a Polish MEP declared that women should earn less than men because they are “weaker, smaller and less intelligent.” Breitbart, the right-wing website pioneered by Steve Bannon, now Trump’s chief strategist, has claimed that birth control makes women unattractive and crazy. And so on.

Women still suffer from society’s expectations:

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The Voice

Lib Dems react to Budget

By The Voice | Wed 8th March 2017 - 2:17 pm

Liberal Democrats have been reacting to Philip Hammond’s budget which seems to do not much more than stoke the balance in favour of massive corporates as opposed to small business and give extra money to Tory hobby-horses like free schools,

In terms of the massive issues facing the country in health and social care and housing, there’s not much.

Liberal Democrats have been reacting to the budget. Susan Kramer highlighted how the Tories had broken their manifesto promise by raising national insurance for the self-employed:

This is a tax on builders, taxi drivers and window cleaners, some of Britain’s hardest working people. This hits the gig economy where people are already insecure and facing rising prices and job uncertainty. And on International Women’s Day it will hit over one and a half million women.

Companies will continue to save money by using workers without giving them the security and benefits of staff jobs. Meanwhile, these workers will have to pay more. This is patently as unfair as it is a tax on entrepreneurship and hard work.

Tim Farron also slammed the rise:

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Lorely Burt

Lorely Burt writes: We can’t call ourselves a democracy when men monopolise public life

By Lorely Burt | Wed 8th March 2017 - 11:55 am

The theme for International Women’s Day 2017 is ‘Be Bold for Change’ – this got me thinking about how we, as Liberal Democrats, can do our bit to help forge a better and more gender equal world. Of course, as a party we have already taken a great leap forward for the future to make sure we reflect the diversity of the country with the ‘Electing Diverse MPs’ motion passed almost a year ago. But as individuals what can we do to make sure that more women get involved and active in the party at every level?

It was less than six months ago that we, both men and women pulling together, managed to get Sarah Olney elected to Parliament. Like many of you there was a defining moment that made her join the Liberal Democrats and get stuck in, but we have to remember that not all women will put themselves forward like that and some may need more encouragement than others. We all have a responsibility to reach out to those women we think would make great Liberal Democrat elected representatives, and let’s face it we can all think of one or two. The evidence is clear – if a woman is approached to stand then she is most likely to consider it.

Change will not happen overnight, it will take all our efforts to make these incremental changes. Let us never be complacent, as this year’s theme reminds us – we must be bold. We are a country that prides itself on being progressive and inclusive – yet Parliament, our country’s highest decision-making body, is only 30% female.

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Chris White

Not all hanging together

By Chris White | Wed 8th March 2017 - 11:12 am

Back in the late 1990s, the various local government associations for county councils, district councils and metropolitan authorities decided that it would be best to work together rather than in separate silos: so the Local Government Association was born.

The principle is obvious: local government, unprotected by a written constitution and loathed by much of the press, needs to make its case with central government, which can legislate away its powers and much of its money at the drop of a hat, regardless of the consequences on services or communities. MPs know best, after all, and Whitehall knows even better than MPs.

Conservative-controlled Surrey County Council seems keen on tearing up this approach. Like all shire counties it is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to social care: government grants have been cut, as part of never-ending austerity, while the demand for services rises annually as we all live longer.

The proposal for a 15% increase in the council tax precept drew intakes of (sometimes admiring) breath from around the country but we all suspected that the referendum necessary to approve such a large increase would be lost. It must, we thought, be principally a political move to put pressure on Tory ministers with seats in Surrey.

Amazingly, this cynicism proved to be close to the mark. Accidentally leaked texts showed the Surrey Tory Leader negotiating some sort of deal on behalf of his council (good for his council but bad for other councils who don’t have this sort of access to government). Ministerial denials followed as news got out: and the Government pretended that the contacts were just routine – not specific deals for Surrey.

Sadly the accident-prone Tory Leader of Surrey has been caught out again (see Guardian) because someone secretly recorded the Tory group meeting on 7 February.

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Ruth Bright

International Women’s Day: Could there ever be a Lib Dem Jess Phillips?

By Ruth Bright | Wed 8th March 2017 - 10:21 am
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The Voice

Inspiring Lib Dem Women: Daisy Benson

By The Voice | Wed 8th March 2017 - 9:59 am

On this International Women’s Day, we are celebrating some inspiring Lib Dem Women.

PPC for Yeovil Daisy Benson’s infectious liberalism and energy has led her to be one of the driving forces behind the Lib Dem Newbies group on Facebook.

As a councillor in Reading, she was the executive member for housing  and social care.

She was one of the most successful early social media campaigners, recognising that it’s not just a  broadcast platform but a space for dialogue.

Daisy is now concentrating her energies on winning back the Yeovil seat. We need her energy and ideas in Parliament.

This week she’s been featured on the Daily Politics. Watch below:

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Kirsten Johnson

International Women’s Day – Who cares?

By Kirsten Johnson | Wed 8th March 2017 - 8:55 am

Today we are celebrating International Women’s Day.  For some, it is a chance to recognise the achievements of women in the arts, sport and science; to others it is an opportunity to highlight inequalities. I wish to do both: to celebrate the contribution women make up and down this country although that contribution causes them more inequality. I speak of caring.

In the world of caring, women are indispensable. And undervalued. 58% of carers in the U.K. are women, but in relation to the number of hours worked the percentage is higher. European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality commissioned report found that European women spend an average of 26 hours a week on caring activities, whilst men spend only 9 hours.

In the U.K., 73% of those who receive Carers’ Allowance (giving care more than 35 hours a week) are women. 38% of carers are caring for over 100 hours a week.

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Paul Walter

++Second government defeat – Lords vote for parliamentary veto on final Brexit deal

By Paul Walter | Tue 7th March 2017 - 7:35 pm

The BBC reports:

The government has suffered a second Brexit defeat in the House of Lords as peers backed, by 366 votes to 268, calls for a “meaningful” parliamentary vote on the final terms of withdrawal.
Backing the move, former deputy PM Lord Heseltine said Parliament must be the “custodian of national sovereignty”.

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Paul Walter

Meet Paul Tyler’s (almost) unused cooker…

By Paul Walter | Tue 7th March 2017 - 6:09 pm


Paul (Lord) Tyler shows the nation the oven he has only used once (to warm up a pizza that “was a bit flabby”).

The second episode of “Meet the Lords” aired last night and is available here on BBC iPlayer for the next 29 days. I mentioned, in my review of last week’s opening show, that our own dear Paul (Lord) Tyler was popping up in the programme. Well, this week I am delighted to say that the great Cornish Liberal is featured at some length. The film crew visit him in his little flat and follow him on his daily journey to the Lords.

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Joe Otten

Liblink: Greg Mulholland MP on business rates for pubs and restaurants

By Joe Otten | Tue 7th March 2017 - 11:20 am

Greg Mulholland writes in Politics Home on how pubs up and down the country are being unfairly hit by business rate revaluation.

Pubs are, of course, businesses and need to pay their share of tax. Yet when research for the British Beer and Pub Association shows that pubs are paying 2.8% of the entire business rate bill, whilst only generating 0.5% of business turnover, the plain unfairness of the current system towards pubs is laid bare. The revaluation will further this disadvantage, with pubs and restaurants receiving a 15% and 23% increase in rateable value respectively, being the only sector

…

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Joe Otten

Dead parrot squawking

By Joe Otten | Tue 7th March 2017 - 9:37 am

Ed Lucas in the Times has noticed the Liberal Democrat fightback. The whole piece is behind a register-for-two-articles-a-week-wall, but here is a flavour.

Yet look again. The parrot is far from dead. It is squawking back to life, thanks to the Brexit vote, Labour’s meltdown and sellers’ remorse after the general election. Membership has rocketed, to more than 82,000, the highest in 20 years. The party is now out-fundraising Labour. As well as the parliamentary by-election victory in Richmond Park, Lib Dems have been scoring a stunning run of local successes, snatching council seats in such seemingly unpromising places as

…

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Mary Reid

LibLink: David Laws – UK reaches socially acceptable limits of austerity

By Mary Reid | Mon 6th March 2017 - 7:39 pm

David Laws has written an article in the Financial Times, but you have to be a subscriber to read it.  We will give you a flavour of the piece here so you can decide whether to subscribe (the trial version is £1 for 4 weeks).

In May 2010, as the chief secretary in the UK’s coalition government, I warned that the choices available to us in Britain’s biggest postwar spending squeeze lay between the unpalatable and the disastrous, and that we were moving from an age of plenty to an age of austerity.

It has not been a bad prediction, by political standards.

At that time, public sector austerity was both necessary and deliverable. Necessary, because our budget deficit was an eye-watering £163bn, in excess of 10 per cent of gross domestic product. Deliverable, because the UK had only just ended an unprecedented expansion of public spending under the Blair and Brown governments.

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Sally Symington

The future of the English Party

By Sally Symington | Mon 6th March 2017 - 6:29 pm

The English Party has set out its governance review, with the aim of making it accessible to members and easy to engage with, whilst providing least distraction from current campaigning and the fighting of elections and by-elections. We recognise the importance of ensuring the party in England is relevant and accountable to members, has clarity of purpose and operation and is effective and efficient and have worked hard to embrace these ideals in the range of proposals being put to members.

The options for the future of the party in England have been complied by a review group set up in autumn 2016 by the English Council Executive and comprising representatives from all eleven regions. The members of the English Review Group, as we are known, come to the process with a range of professional and party experience, including both long-standing and relatively new members. Within the group, we have differing opinions regarding the future shape of the English Party but have all have worked together to come up with a range of proposals for consultation.

The proposals outline four options for how the future party in England might look and function, they include:

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Chris White

Well – did they consult or not?

By Chris White | Mon 6th March 2017 - 5:27 pm

The issue of refugee children will not go away – both in reality and in terms of a decency-check on the current Government, including the Home Secretary in particular.

The Government is adamant that the decision to close the ‘Dubs’ scheme, which many believed would allow the country to accept a further 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees, was because local government did not have the capacity for more than around 400. The evidence for this is that the Home Office asked councils and this is what councils told it. Simples.

The problem with this is twofold.

First of all, why did the Home Office …

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Mary Reid

LibLink: Catherine Bearder on World Wildlife Day

By Mary Reid | Mon 6th March 2017 - 1:33 pm

 

I’m afraid we didn’t mark World Wildlife Day on LDV last Friday. Fortunately our MEP Catherine Bearder did in an engaging post covering the top wildlife wins and losses in the past year.

She writes:

2016 was a historic year in the global fight against wildlife crime. From the ivory bans to the new CITES protection for over 500 species – there is a lot we can be proud of.

But we would be kidding ourselves if we think the work here is done. Wildlife trafficking is still a top four global criminal activity and the money streams gained from it are often used to fund other illegal operations like arms trafficking and even terrorism.

Wildlife by its nature is unsupervised and therefore vulnerable to the criminal gangs who exploit it for massive profit.

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