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.
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.
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.
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:
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:
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:
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.
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.
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:
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.
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”.
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.
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
…
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
…
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.
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:
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 …
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.
Whilst researching this subject, I couldn’t help thinking that here were the ingredients ripe for the design of a board game. It could be something of a cross between “Diplomacy” and “Vendée Globe”?
Each player representing a country of choice could set its mission and collaborate with other players to achieve their desired outcomes. Chance cards might include whether, say, an international tribunal has decided in their favour. And tokens could be earned along the way to enable them to reclaim rocks and reefs, build air strips or even patrol the islands with clone submarines?
We are, of course, not speaking of a game but of what is happening in reality, and the countries involved in a potential war game include South East Asian countries (such as Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei) and also greater powers such as China (Taiwan) and the US. At stake are the rights to valuable resources such as oil and gas, fishing rights and the protection of vital sea routes.
This piece is long overdue, as I joined the Liberals Democrats back in October 2016. Since then, I have been elected Secretary of Runnymede & Spelthorne Liberal Democrats. I am also deeply involved with the newly formed (or regenerated) Royal Holloway LibDem Society.
So how does one defect from UKIP to the LibDems? I shall be frank.
I started involvement with UKIP in 2010, at the age of thirteen. This was when the party was an anti-EU pressure group. It felt outrageous and fantastically rebellious to participate in an idea that could undermine the entire establishment. When I saw the three main parties, I saw spin, snobbery and fakery. I did dream that one day something big would take down the political elite, who to me had a contempt for ordinary people and democracy. Today, I still believe this contempt exists strongly, but now we have a situation where they are forced to listen a little bit more.
My involvement in UKIP allowed me to channel my indignation. Also, being the only young person in the room, on many occasions, allowed me to develop a range of political and communication skills that may have taken much longer to attain in another party.
However, I came to realise that the party was seriously limited: organisationally and intellectually. There is no plan, for anything. It’s all improvisation. And if there is someone with a plan, he/she will probably leave or get kicked out, because the party’s vested interested in keeping the party like a pressure group is too strong. It felt like what Party HQ really needed was a textbook explanation of the roles and functions of a political party on every wall, before anything serious could begin.
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 471st 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 February – 4 March , 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:
Many thanks to the 13,700 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…
Lib Dems GAIN a council seat and have a strong hold in Redcar (17 comments) by Caron Lindsay
£1 million donation to Lib Dems helps party oppose Brexit (18 comments) by Caron Lindsay
Wow! A Liberal Democrat on Question Time tonight (11 comments) by Caron Lindsay
Lib Dems react to Government defeat over #righttostay (60 comments) by Caron Lindsay
Brexit – it’s time to stop looking for someone to blame and take action (45 comments) by Andrew Davidson
Why I was furious to get an email from Liz Leffman (41 comments) by Caron Lindsay
I give you this series of early morning tweets from the President of the United States of America, as collated by Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire:
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
On 5th March 1770 outside the customs house on King’s Street, Boston, Private Hugh White was talking to some off-duty comrades when a passing Bostonian made a crack about the British soldier’s commanding officer – prompting Pvt White to clock the civilian across the side of the head. The off-duty soldiers made themselves scarce, leaving the private to deal with the fast-growing ring of angry Bostonians that soon surrounded him. White backed up against the custom house door – gun raised out of fear of what might happen next. The growing crowd heckled him, daring him to shoot.
Up the street, Captain Preston, commander of the custom house garrison, watched events unfold. The Captain was hoping that the situation would resolve itself naturally but soon the church bells started tolling and more men, many armed with clubs, started showing up and Preston knew it was high-time that he went to get his man. He led a corporal and six privates through the crowd, now numbering 300-400 strong, towards Private White but rather than just pulling the soldier out from the situation he ordered his men to form a semi-circle around him while facing the crowd, guns unfortunately loaded.
This country deserves better than to be ruled as it is by an Alice–in-Wonderland government, feebly countered by a Humpty-Dumpty official opposition.
I am angry that, as a result, in my neighbouring Copeland constituency our Liberal Democrat candidate Rebecca Hanson was sidelined by the clash of these tottering Titans. Of course she did well to double our share of the vote and beat the hollow UKIP, but not nearly as well as such an excellent standard-bearer deserved.
Instead the representative of this uncaring, and ultimately incompetent government of ours went to Westminster.
The Liberal Democrat campaign in Copeland was focused. ‘Who is fighting hard Brexit?’ demanded one leaflet, which explained how the Liberal Democrats are the only party fighting to protect jobs, jeopardised by the Conservative plan to leave the Single Market. Rebecca’s support for the further investment in the local nuclear industry was there, with back-up details.
Today, across the country, Lib Dems have been taking part in a national day of action, collecting signatures for our petition calling on the Government to give EU nationals the right to stay in the UK and spreading the word about our opposition to the Government’s position on Brexit and our call for people to be given the final say on the Brexit deal. This is way too important for all our futures to leave to the Brexit Government.
I hope that EU nationals take some comfort from the fact that there is so much public support for them to be given the right to continue to live in the country where they have settled.
There were over 100 events in total. Here are some of the pictures of the bright street stalls all over the country:
Lots of support in #beckenham #righttostay #dayofaction @LondonLibDems @BromleyLibDems pic.twitter.com/QwhftEw2GE
— Julie Ireland (@JulieIreland) March 4, 2017
Lots #Southsea #Portsmouth residents backing #LibDems #DayofAction @havantlibdems @AEuropeanBrit @darrensandersld @LibDemNewbiesUK helping pic.twitter.com/ILyRZGroGs
— Portsmouth Lib Dems (@portsmouthld) March 4, 2017
News from the land of Twitter:
Jackie Pearcey selected as @LibDems candidate for Manchester Gorton
— Cllr. John Leech (@johnleechmcr) March 4, 2017
Jackie is a fabulous candidate. She has 20 years’ experience as a Gorton councillor. She’s brilliant. I first met her in a queue at the Torquay conference in 1993 and I just love her plain-speaking manner and sense of humour. There couldn’t be a better person to fly the Lib Dem flag. She’s in the centre of the photo in between Mamchester mayoral candidate Jane Brophy and the one-man opposition to Labour Cllr John Leech. That man gives Labour in Manchester a million times more trouble than Corbyn’s Labour gives to Theresa May’s Brexit Government.
It’s just two months to go until every seat in Scotland and Wales and the English County Councils are up for election. Also being elected are the metro mayors. Jane Brophy in Manchester, Stephen Williams in West of England, Rod Cantrill in Cambridge, Beverley Nielsen in West Midlands, Chris Foote-Wood in Teeside, Carl Cashman in Liverpool are all flying the Liberal Democrat flag.
Now is a good time to work out what you can do on polling day to help your local campaign team plan their effort. Polling day is incredibly important. Elections can be lost on the day if we …
Before I even start this, let me just say that Liz Leffman, the Chair of the English Party and our wonderful candidate in the Witney by-election is one of my favourite Liberal Democrats and that none of this is her fault.
She is one of the most constructive and practical people I have come across in the party and I’m delighted that she is leading the English Party on its journey to reform.
However, I got an email from her the other day, sent out by party HQ, that made me furious. Here’s what it said:
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Budget verdict: A missed opportunity to tackle intergenerational unfairness and give working people a tax breakk (Callum Robertson)
Polls Apart: The dehumanisation of Palestinians (Miranda Pinch)
Ed Davey on the Budget: British people need real change and fast (The Voice)
Vince Cable writes: A budget of small things (Vince Cable)
A Liberal Vision for Britain’s Overseas Territories (Cody Butler)
Christina Coleman joins Lib Dem from the Green Party
Beavers chew down sign warning walkers about beavers in Poland
How reliable is public consultation in the age of AI?
On romanticising nationalised railways...
Farewell to another legend... John Shipley retires...
How George Santos bet on himself and lost
A night at the AGM
Joe Jackson: Breaking Us in Two
The Joy of Six 1598
Jana 
John Hann 
Jason Connor 
Tristan Ward 
Roland 
