NewsHound

LibLInk: Tim Farron: Why Lib Dems will continue to fight for the single market

By NewsHound | Mon 13th February 2017 - 11:00 am

Tim Farron has written a powerful article in the FT accusing Theresa May of sacrificing the British economy as Labour stand by and help her.

We have tried to bring sanity to the debate, tabling amendments in the House of Commons to retain single-market membership, to allow EU citizens lawfully resident in the UK to keep their right to remain, and to give the British people a vote on the final Brexit deal. Mrs May, though, is not listening. She has crushed opposition from her MPs and made the political decision to sacrifice the British economy. The situation has been made worse by a divided Labour party that has failed to oppose the government’s Brexit strategy. Labour has not merely failed to provide an opposition, it has conspired to help the Conservatives risk the stability of the UK economy.

He outlines the damage that leaving the single market would do:

For our efforts, we have been denounced as democratic deniers and enemies of the people. It would be amusing if the Conservatives were not pushing Britain towards an economic shock. A series of reports puts the price of leaving the single market as high as £200bn over 15 years. Liberal Democrats are not only standing up for the 48 per cent who backed Remain but also for Leave voters who do not understand why Mrs May would choose to lose regulatory control over exports to our largest market — all against a darkening economic picture. The UK economy is being buoyed by consumer spending but with public-sector wage caps, rising inflation and deep cuts to public spending, few are betting that shoppers will spare the government’s blushes for much longer.

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Dave Gorman

Pay ratios, inequality and fairness

By Dave Gorman | Mon 13th February 2017 - 9:55 am

I’ve little time for Jeremy Corbyn but just occasionally his instincts are right- as when he recently raised the idea of pay controls for the highly paid. 

Now of course the random way he presented it made it an easy target but I was surprised and disappointed how quickly people dismissed the idea. Either its apparently ‘just bonkers’, or won’t work, or is bad politics or all of the above.

But I don’t think it is. Yes, we need more than just a cap on pay ratios to address rising inequality and the rising inequality of power that comes with it. Yes, rich people have other sources of income than salaries- including dividends, capital gains and rental income. Yes, the politics may be hard- but I suspect that’s more to do with how our perspective has narrowed after too much centralism over the last 30 years.

In the 1960s the ratio of a CEO’s pay to that of the average worker was around 20:1, rising to around 40:1 in the 1970s. What is it now? Around 150:1 in the UK and still rising. There is no convincing evidence that such massive increases of pay, so that a FTSE 100 boss earns £5.5m a year, is really linked to the brilliance or the insight of the leader, or the output or the outcomes for the company.  

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 31 Comments
Ed Fordham

P-10: Legacy campaigning in a by-election

By Ed Fordham | Mon 13th February 2017 - 8:28 am

So the final straight approaches and we are looking at our campaign and putting in place the finishing touches and allowing space for some extra elements. We have been often asked by visiting helpers what can they do to make a real difference. So here today for the first time I think i have the answer, which is not as obvious as I expected.

I am a huge believer in having what I call legacy campaigning: that regardless of the electoral outcome that you achieve some positives, some learning, training and apply that to the future.  I spend a lot of time urging new members to attend by-elections, seeing them as training porgrammes, and suggesting that people go with clear objectives of what they can do, might learn and will leave with.

Now, I don’t know about you, but when I sit down to do some telephone canvassing on my own it is all too easy to get distracted, to put it off or to make just one or two calls and then do something else. So in place of that setting up a Phone Bank appears to be the solution to my lack of application.

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Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #468

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 12th February 2017 - 9:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 468th 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 (5-11 February, 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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Ed Fordham

P-11. It’s Sunday Politics Midlands show live from Staffordshire University

By Ed Fordham | Sun 12th February 2017 - 6:00 pm
Sunday morning at Staffordshire University on the Leek Road Campus and we getting ready for Sunday Politics Midlands who are hosting a live debate between the five leading candidates in the Stoke-on-Trent Central by-election.  I’m here with Zulfiqar having a coffee before it all commences.

Sitting here in the coffee bar with the other candidates is always slightly curious – I’m trying to think of a witty line about watching the Labour candidate Gareth Snell having make-up applied… but I think I’ll leave that there

So what will Zulfi have to say? I’m pleased to say he’s standing on a strong ticket, he’s calm, he’s genuine and sincere. As a Cardiologist he gives you confidence that he’s in control and in command.

It’s so good having a candidate in whom you have confidence and don’t need to over-worry.  As a classic candidate he can get distracted by the needs of residents (this is good), he tries to do too much in too little time (this is good), and best of all he knows lots of people and gets stopped in the street (this is very good).

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The Voice

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

By The Voice | Sun 12th February 2017 - 4:00 pm

7 bestMany thanks to the  15,300 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…

Two Lib Dem GAINS from the Conservatives (17 comments) by Caron Lindsay

WATCH: Tim Farron on Sky News “It’s a dark day” (56 comments) by The Voice 

P-16: What is Stoke’s daily paper saying about the by-election? (5 comments) by Ed Fordham

Farron attacks government plans to make patients pay upfront for NHS treatment (42 comments) by Caron Lindsay

Farron: Lib Dems will not make a pact with Corbyn’s Labour (34 comments) by Newshound

Can anyone tell me what is wrong with this story in the Independent (3 comments) by Caron Lindsay

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NewsHound

WATCH: Ros Scott talk about the Article 50 Bill, Brexit, the Lib Dems & local elections

By NewsHound | Sun 12th February 2017 - 2:30 pm

This week, Lib Dem Peer and ALDE Vice President Ros Scott was interviewed live on Facebook. Listen to her talk about the “constitutional nonsense” that is the House of Lords, explain the Lib Dem position on Brexit and encourage people to get involved in the Lib Dems.

What was particularly brilliant was to hear her talk up the importance of the local elections. As a former councillor, she really gets how important they are in themselves, but she also adds that commentators will be watching to see how well we do.

She also predicts a “sensible and rational” agreement on reciprocal rights for EU and UK citizens.

Here is the interview in full.

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NewsHound

LibLink: Nick Clegg: Children’s Mental Health Week: Nearly two thirds of children feel worried all the time

By NewsHound | Sun 12th February 2017 - 1:10 pm

Nick Clegg has written an article for the Huffington Post to mark Children’s Mental Health Week, highlighting a study which found that nearly two thirds of children feel worried all the time.

As he says, stress and worry are part of life but it’s important that people have the right support when they need it or that stress and worry could develop into mental ill health.

Stress and worry are a part of every walk of life. No job, no task, is without its stresses and strains. During my time as deputy Prime Minister I would have numerous decisions to juggle which would leave me worrying about whether I was making the right choices or not. Luckily I have an amazing family and close friends who gave me all the support I could wish for. Not everyone is as fortunate.

As an adult having to deal with such pressure is extremely difficult to navigate so I can’t imagine what it would be like for a child to feel anxious and stressed all the time. Yet I was surprised to learn this week that nearly two thirds of children say they worry all the time. Accordingly to a new survey published by children’s charity Place2Be 63% of children still at primary school say they worry “all the time” about at least one thing to do with their school life, home life or themselves.

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Caron Lindsay

Labour leaflet: It’s a lie to say Labour opposes Brexit

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 12th February 2017 - 11:40 am

This is a Labour leaflet being delivered in Stoke. Here they are, trying to out-UKIP UKIP.

“Every major party except the Lib Dems are supporting Brexit here in Stoke”

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Katharine Pindar

Campaigning in Copeland

By Katharine Pindar | Sun 12th February 2017 - 10:10 am

In Copeland we’re energetically getting on with promoting our excellent candidate, Rebecca Hanson in the by-election which takes place on 23 February. Willing helpers are flocking to this huge constituency. There is immense Facebook support, but the pleasures of reaching out to the towns and villages between the fells and the sea are considerable, so we invite many more of you to come to share them with us in the next, crucial, ten days.

Yesterday morning Roger Putnam, Vice-Chair of our Copeland and Workington Executive, and I managed to beat the rain, leafletting in Seascale in the south-west of the constituency under only a slight drizzle. This was our third visit to Seascale, delivering the Health Facilities survey, a second  leaflet, and now the tabloid glossy proclaiming, Rebecca Hanson and the Liberal Democrats. Fighting to protect local jobs from hard Brexit, improve local schools and safeguard our NHS.

A lone Tory was out at the same time, delivering an eight-page A4 breezily entitled Cumbria View, of uncertain purpose. As with the Labour Party here, it feels as if the Conservatives are relying on past loyalties for their votes. Well, we aim to bring the focus firmly into the present. For a start, Rebecca seems to be winning the leaflet contest; the house porches blossomed with orange leaflets, the freepost delivery having just arrived as well.

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Helen Flynn

How to campaign in a “post-truth” world

By Helen Flynn | Sun 12th February 2017 - 8:58 am

I am going to tell you a story.  It happens to be true.  But bear with me, there is a point to it.

The “Swinsty cormorant” was usually there, perched on a float around 100 metres out from the dam wall at Swinsty Reservoir in North Yorkshire, whenever I ran round it with my dogs.  I used to be fascinated by the lone bird and would always look out for him to see if he was there.  My imagination ran riot with why he was always there on his own with no mates in sight.  I was captured by the romance of his loneliness, I suppose.

But one day, about 18 months ago, it all changed.  I would often meet a man on the days I ran who I knew slightly, and we would have a chat.  One day I came across him by the location of the Swinsty cormorant.  I asked him if he, like me, was fascinated by this lone creature.  His reply crushed me—albeit in only a small way.  He pointed out something very obvious that I had, oddly, never thought of.  It was not the same bird there all the time—cormorants visited the reservoir in small numbers, so it was fairly evident that the actual bird changed, especially as there was only room for one bird on the float.

After that day, I did see a cormorant on the float occasionally, but did not particularly look out for it nor spend any time thinking about it really.  I suppose that was when I realized that I, in common with many people, was a “sucker” for a good story.  But when faced with the facts—the evidence—which blew the story away, I was not particularly interested.  The only actual point of interest was the fact that cormorants were regular visitors to the reservoir.

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Ed Fordham

P-12: Thanks to all those helping in Stoke who are not yet Liberal Democrats

By Ed Fordham | Sat 11th February 2017 - 8:09 pm

So the weekend is always busy – but right now it’s like a gathering of the clans. People coming in from across the country to help the Liberal Democrat candidate Dr Zulfiqar Ali. Now I have done a lot of campaigns and by-elections and seen a fair range of Liberal Democrats. But today has surprised and impressed me…

People are turning up to help Dr Zulfiqar Ali who have never been involved in Party politics – when asked they are desperate to stop the rise of UKIP, against the rise of the far right, against hatred and against fear. These are predominantly young people, they are angry at the way their country is going and they want want a new direction that is positive and inclusive and welcoming.

In addition we have regular hardened party activists who know and understand what is at stake in this election. They know that the harder you work, the better your vote will be. Now the politics of Stoke-on-Trent is unlike many other cities – people have backed opposition groups in the hope of change and been disappointed. In addition they have seen Labour parachute in candidate after Labour candidate to be their MPs. Now this is not a plea for pure localism – Stoke has a proud history of welcoming people from different communities – but occasionally it would be good to have someone who has made Stoke their home before they were elected.

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Caron Lindsay

Sarah Olney: Richmond Park By-Election was one of the best experiences of my life

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 11th February 2017 - 1:26 pm

Our newest MP has been talking to The House magazine, along with other recent by-election winners, about the Liberal Democrats’ winning campaign in Richmond Park. She described it as one of the best experiences of her life:

Running in a by-election was one of the best experiences of my life. I am very new to politics, I’ve never been involved in a parliamentary campaign of any kind, I’ve never been a candidate in any election before, so I had no idea what to expect. It was quite a high profile campaign, right from the beginning I was right in the

…

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Paul Walter

Impressive free public access to our Supreme Court

By Paul Walter | Sat 11th February 2017 - 11:57 am

The main courtroom at the Supreme Court, from the perspective of the Presiding Judge.
This week I wanted to visit a court in London, to get a feel for the proceedings. I didn’t fancy the Old Bailey – its case list is a series of stabbings basically. Not nice. I was about to make the journey to the Royal Courts of Justice in The Strand when I remembered the more recently opened Supreme Court.

The United Kingdom Supreme Court resides just opposite Parliament in an impressive building previously occupied by Middlesex County Council and the Middlesex Courts.

When I visited, there were only a few people milling around inside. The staff were very friendly and helpful. I was whisked through the security scanner and then the receptionist explained what I could do in the building. The public are able to wonder around the three court rooms (when there are no cases ongoing) and take photographs. Then there is an interesting exhibition area about the history of the building, the Supreme Court, the Magna Carta and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. That latter entity is the final court of judgment for a number of territories overseas.

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Posted in London and Op-eds | Tagged and | 3 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg cheered by students

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 11th February 2017 - 10:30 am

Six years ago, Nick Clegg was not the most popular politician amongst students. Now, things have changed as many young people find that he speaks for them as the Government hurtles towards a hard Brexit which will blight their future and opportunities. The Guardian’s Patrick Wintour watched him speak to a crowd of students last night:

In his Standard column this week, Nick described another student debate, in his Sheffield constituency, where he had a few words to say to the Labour MP on the panel:

I was on a platform with other politicians taking questions from a student audience. A local Labour MP was having the normal go at me about tuition fees. Fair enough — though I noticed he omitted to mention Labour’s own role in introducing tuition fees, and then trebling them on its own watch.

No, the moment Labour’s malaise really struck me was when this MP started speaking about the vote last week in the Commons on Article 50. He displayed none of the intelligence or humility of Keir Starmer, the shadow secretary for exiting the EU, who disarmingly confessed to the gathered MPs how difficult the issue is for Labour. Instead, in Sheffield this MP started to deliver a sanctimonious lecture to the Ukip and Conservative panellists, berating them for placing immigration above the economy in the Brexit talks.

I couldn’t contain myself. Irascibly, I interrupted his pro-European sermon to remind him that he’d just got off a train from London having voted with Douglas Carswell, Michael Gove, John Redwood and other zealous Brexiteers. How could he claim he was representing the interests of the youngsters in the audience having given his support to Theresa May’s uncompromisingly hard Brexit, yanking the UK out of the single market altogether?

I don’t believe that it would have been a betrayal of democracy if MPs had voted against the Government last week. All that would have happened, once the splenetic outrage of the Brexit-supporting press had passed, is that the Government would have been forced to come back to MPs with a more moderate, workable approach to Brexit which would then have received their support. MPs would not have blocked Brexit but they would have blocked hard Brexit. So it is pretty rich for Labour MPs to deliver pious homilies to other parties about the dangers of hard Brexit.

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Caron Lindsay

What do you do when you want to distract from your party driving the country off a cliff?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 11th February 2017 - 8:55 am

Well, if you’re Welsh Conservative Leader Andrew R T Davies, you point out to anyone who will listen that Liberal Democrat Welsh Education Secretary voted in accordance with Liberal Democrat policy in the Article 50 debate in the Senedd as if this should be some sort of issue.

Labour AMs were whipped to vote for Article 50 to be invoked.

Davies argues that this broke cabinet responsibility. The BBC has the story:

The Liberal Democrat AM voted with Plaid Cymru against Article 50 despite the Labour group opposing the motion.

Mr Davies suggested some Labour AMs were “sore” over the Senedd vote.

Mr Jones’s spokesman said it was recognised the Lib Dems were in a different position on the matter.

Article 50 of the European Union Lisbon treaty is the trigger that would allow UK ministers to start the process to leave the EU.

The UK government wants to set Article 50 in motion by the end of March.

Mr Davies himself campaigned for Vote Leave at the referendum last year – his group joined Labour and UKIP in voting against the Plaid Cymru proposal in the Senedd on Tuesday.

Only 10 AMs supported the motion to oppose Article 50 being triggered without assurances over the single market, versus 46 against.

The vote if passed would have been advisory and would not have affected the process.

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Ed Fordham

P-13: Time for another delivery, we think

By Ed Fordham | Fri 10th February 2017 - 5:45 pm

If the plan was going to work, then it was going to happen sooner rather than later… and sure enough today the first deliverer came back. “I have just had a mouthful from a resident complaining about the number of leaflets from the Liberal Democrats.”

We have we think reached the tipping point of recognition from the electorate.  Dr Zulfiqar Ali is a former City councillor here in Hanley, Etruria and Shelton, he knows the city well and lives in it, and he has a strong and positive recognition amongst voters here.

Now our literature and canvassing campaign has broken through the sea of apathy with politics to gain traction with the voters of of the City.  What we now need is as many of you as possible to take to the telephone and get out on the doorstep and help us deluvery the outstanding result that no one expects. The voters recognise the campaign, recognise Zulfiqar, now we need to secure them to vote for him.

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Stephen Tall

LibDemVoice Fantasy Football League: manager of the month for January

By Stephen Tall | Fri 10th February 2017 - 4:49 pm

Our sixth update from the LDV Fantasy Football League. Congratulations to Richard Morris, our Manager of the Month for January.

His Armchair Villa scored an impressive 257 points, just edging out David Cape’s Rose United (256) and Nick Davies’s Wenger’s 2nd XI (255).

Here’s the overall league table:

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Paul Walter

The national treasure that is the British Library – all done in the best PAASSIBLE taste

By Paul Walter | Fri 10th February 2017 - 2:30 pm

A few years after broadcasting genius Kenny Everett died, I remember reading that he left his tape collection to the National Sound Archive. This sounded wonderful, but I didn’t envisage having the time to ever sample these tapes and I imagined that it would involve a trip to a chilly warehouse in Sutton Coldfield.

After a little Googling, I found that the National Sound Archive is part of the British Library. Their large building is just next to St Pancras Station in London, coincidentally just a stone’s throw from where Kenny Everett broadcast much of his work at Capital Radio’s studio in Euston Tower. (The British Library also have a place in Wetherby, West Yorkshire). After negotiating their essential processes, on Monday I proudly held my “Reader’s Ticket” and marched along to the Rare Music Books section of the British Library. There I listened for four hours to the most wondrous collection of Kenny Everett recordings.

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Posted in Op-eds and The Arts | Tagged and | 6 Comments
Paul Walter

Jeremy Thorpe – ‘one of the bravest men in British politics’

By Paul Walter | Fri 10th February 2017 - 1:29 pm

On Monday night, the National Liberal Club was the august venue for the AGM of the Liberal Democrat History Group, followed by a talk by Ronald Porter entitled “Jeremy is innocent”.

The full title of the talk, which was presented personal views from Ronald Porter (who is an obituarist and food/wine writer for the Independent and other outlets) was:

The life and times of Jeremy (1929-2014) and Marion Thorpe (1926-2014) by Ronald Porter with some splendid help from Duncan Brack.

Michael Steed chaired the talk and Duncan Brack helped provide photographs for it.

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Dave Gorman

The Brexit White Paper- Big Holes in All the Wrong Places…

By Dave Gorman | Fri 10th February 2017 - 11:53 am

I have now had a chance to read the Brexit White paper. I’ve read hundreds of these things in my time (not healthy I know!) and this one appears to me nowhere near as bad as the press reports would have led me to believe in terms of its general structure or presentation. More clarity does indeed emerge and some objectives can be gleaned amid the bland generality and optimistic objectives.

Unfortunately the paper suffers from four major weaknesses:

– The tendency to suggest that because there is a mutual interest in succeeding between the UK and the EU, say for example on passporting of financial services, that there is therefore an identical mutual interest. In fact it’s clearly far more important to the UK than the EU on sheer weight of interest and numbers. This tendency to elide common interest into identical interest is a major weakness. Ironically, this flippant blindness is very similar to the SNP/Scottish independence campaign’s approach to UK relations post-separation.
– Environmental protection- this is an obvious common and pan-European need to manage effectively- from transboundary air pollution to illegal waste shipments, from common carbon emissions trading schemes to marine planning. However the environment is barely mentioned- an astonishing absence considering that for example, workers’ rights get a chapter to itself, that future food, farming and marine policy will be up for grabs in the largest change in 50 years, that the bulk of UK environment law (80%+) is founded on EU law, and that environment is most at risk from the aggressive free trade open economy ideas that the government has floated.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Ex-Pat: Trump’s Aim

By Tom Arms | Fri 10th February 2017 - 10:25 am

What is Trump’s  Aim?

Alright he has answered the question. So has his press secretary Sean Spicer. It is the slogan on the baseball cap: To “make America great again.”

But for the life of me I can’t understand how he is going to achieve that aim, especially as America already is the world’s only superpower, produces the lion’s share of the world’s wealth and has one the world’s highest standards of living. How great can a country be?

Setting all that aside, how does  the slogan translate into policy? What is required in the Trump playbook to re-achieve American greatness?

After a roller-coaster three weeks we are getting an idea. Trump’s great America is a non-renewable energy-powered industrial monolith churning out yesteryear’s manufactured products behind a metaphorical and physical wall of bricks, steel and tariffs.

Trump’s great America is paranoid and xenophobic. It bans highly skilled, entrepreneurial and hard-working Muslim immigrants for fear that the Judaeo-Christian culture cannot compete against Islamic fifth columnists who worm their way into the “dishonest” media and government. Or worse still sneak into the country and attempt to violently overthrow the system.

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Kirsten Johnson

Compassion Fatigue? Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children

By Kirsten Johnson | Fri 10th February 2017 - 8:55 am

On Wednesday there was the announcement that we would not take any more child refugees. Noticeable that the government released this statement the same day of the Brexit vote! And this story was not even on front pages yesterday.

Lib Dems had campaigned for the UK to take 3000 unaccompanied minors. Many others lobbied, including Lord Alf Dubs, and this resulted in the so-called Dubs amendment to the Immigration Act 2016.

Where is our compassion? Should we not be taking in the most vulnerable victims of horrendous conflicts that have caused children to flee their own country? This saga has gone on for too long, and now the news that the UK will not accept more. The 350 children we will have taken by the end of March is far fewer than other countries have done. Based on our size and wealth, we should feel an obligation to take so many more children. But we don’t seem to have a heart anymore.

I was at a seminar on Wednesday convened by Lord Roberts in the House of Lords about how to better support unaccompanied asylum seeking children. Representatives from the Refugee Council, Amnesty, UNICEF and the Immigration Law Practitioners Association all spoke. This was before the news broke on not taking any more refugee children. The ideas of what the UK should do (and the assumption was that we would be taking more children) were:

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Caron Lindsay

Two Lib Dem GAINS from the Conservatives

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 9th February 2017 - 11:44 pm

Thursday nights are fun at the moment.

Look at that swing!

And one more!

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Posted in News | Tagged | 17 Comments
Ed Fordham

P-14: Stoke-on-Trent Central will count the votes in two weeks’ time

By Ed Fordham | Thu 9th February 2017 - 8:36 pm

Two weeks today the staff at Stoke-on-Trent City Council will be preparing to gather in the ballot boxes and count the votes that have been cast for each of the candidates. The simple truth is no-one knows what the result is, nor where the candidates will come, nor the number of votes cast. All we can do is assess what has gone before, run the campaign we want to run and seek to get out our supporters out on the day and ask them to vote for Dr Zulfiqar Ali.

Lots of people sit behind their keyboard and make bold  assertions as to what will and won’t happen – and to an extent that is what I am doing now. But I am at least doing that whilst being in Stoke-on-Trent, having lived in Stoke-on-Trent and yes having been elected as a City Councillor in Stoke-on-Trent.

So to those of you making predictions – perhaps you might bolster the information and sources available to you by coming up to Stoke-on-Trent, delivering some leaflets, talking to some voters, seeing the streets and the shops and assessing the situation on the ground. If you did that then you will see the unswept streets, the dumped rubbish in the alley sways, the derelict sites and the closed up shops. Now it’s not all gloom for you will also see the new larger terraces houses that have, in places, replaced the old tight workers’ cottage. You will see the new bus station, the football ground, the semi-pedestrianised Piccadilly and more. But in many respects these are trophy projects and much of the real change and investment in Stoke-on-Trent has come from the educational investment provided by Staffordshire and Keele universities, by Stoke-on-Trent College and more.

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Guy Russo

Renewing our commitment to community politics

By Guy Russo | Thu 9th February 2017 - 5:15 pm

There is a problem with the common account of Brexit as a phenomenon driven by the rising up of “neglected communities” against the London-centric establishment that put them in that state. It’s that it ignores the extent to which communities in this country have actually broken down. I’m sure that plenty of Liberal Democrats might think that local organisations, pressure groups, housing associations are still central parts of life in this country, but we have to remember that we are a poor representative sample of the country at large (through volunteering and activism, and even simply through our interest in politics at all, we are far more likely to be engaged with what is going on in our local area, and the local associations involved in decision making there).

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Posted in Op-eds | 5 Comments
Michael Wilkinson

Lib Dems can be the most digitally innovative party

By Michael Wilkinson | Thu 9th February 2017 - 2:59 pm

With an influx of 4,000 new members in less than a month, it is fair to say that the Liberal Democrats’ message on Europe has struck a chord with many people who feel disconcerted by the path to hard Brexit which Theresa May has set our country on. But what do those new activists know about our other policies?

Since starting my new role as Head of Digital Content at the Liberal Democrats, I have applied a few key principles to everything that we do. One of these is particularly pertinent to the area of policy: we must look outwards and talk to the wider public, not just to ourselves. To do that, it needs to be clear what we stand for. That is why in my second week we launched the new “Our Vision” section on the party website.

“Our Vision” features a brief overview of some of our key messages in 12 core areas. I hope this will become a useful resource for both party activists, when advocating what we stand for, and the wider public, when considering us as their party of choice. In the coming weeks we will be developing these sections with new videos and additional reading for those who want to see the detail.

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Alain Desmier

Islington’s Liberal opportunity

By Alain Desmier | Thu 9th February 2017 - 1:25 pm

Islington is one of the most liberal places in the country. Cosmopolitan and confident, Islington was a natural home for the Liberal Democrats, but when voters moved on from Iraq, Labour moved back in. Labour hold 47 of 48 borough council seats (the other is a Green) and have held both parliamentary seats for longer than I’ve been alive.

I am relatively new to front line politics, but then so too are most of our members. Islington’s membership soared past 700 last week and from these newcomers, a majority of our executive have been elected into a Lib Dem role for the first time.

Our first action day of the year last Saturday was a spectacular success. 60 local members came out in the rain to help deliver four different wards across our two constituencies and for many, it was the first political thing they had ever done. An Islington veteran told me afterwards over a drink that she’d never seen anything like that level of enthusiasm, not even on general election day.

Our local residents are enthused as well and it was the first Lib Dem leaflet they had received for at least a year.  Since we delivered our bundles, dozens of residents have emailed through our contact address asking how they can join the party, asking how they can help locally, and of course there are always, always pot holes to fix!

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 15 Comments
Paul Walter

The Trump story that takes the biscuit – until the next one that takes it…

By Paul Walter | Thu 9th February 2017 - 10:55 am

I’m going to sound callous but I do believe that perhaps the only plus point of a Trump Presidency is its comedy value. Viewing figures for the US late night shows are booming.

I thought we had reached the pinnacle of Trump comedy with the story of how he appeared, in front of a cross-party gathering of Congressional leaders at the White House, to base his call for an investigation into voter fraud on a conversation with German golfer Bernard Langer.

But yesterday there came a story which really takes the biscuit. At 3am one morning, local time, President Trump phoned his national security adviser to ask whether a strong or weak dollar was best for the American economy.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 31 Comments
Martin Roche

Winning the self-employed vote

By Martin Roche | Thu 9th February 2017 - 8:11 am

Writing in Tuesday’s Times, Paul Johnson, a director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, says some 15% of the UK workforce is now classed as self-employed or as an owner/manager. Among them is me, now in my 17th year of my second period of self-employment. Indeed, I am the fourth generation of small business petit bourgeoisie Roches (so far, no generation has managed to propel us permanently to the haute bourgeoisie).

Many of the new self-employed are part of what is now known as the “gig economy”: living on short term contracts and often experiencing a financial life of feast and famine. Family insecurity and financial instability are frequent visitors, especially in the early years of a business, when getting established can be a real struggle.

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Posted in Op-eds | 13 Comments
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