Tim Gordon

Federal Committee elections – voting instructions to be dispatched this week

By Tim Gordon | Mon 21st November 2016 - 7:00 pm

Nominations have now closed for elections to Federal Committees, and I’m pleased to say that members have responded extremely well to the call for nominations. There’s a great set of candidates for positions on our Federal Committees, and I would encourage you to read through their manifestos before deciding who to vote for. Manifestos will be made available online as part of the voting website once voting opens.

Voting instructions are being dispatched in the post and should arrive this week. The deliveries are staggered, so some members may receive their voting instructions earlier in the week than others, so don’t …

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Mohsin Khan

We need to reform prescription charges

By Mohsin Khan | Mon 21st November 2016 - 6:00 pm

 

Over the last few years, we’ve seen rise after rise in English prescription charges.

Yet the list of illnesses giving you free prescriptions was set in the 1960s, with cancer being the only recent addition.  Shockingly, it excludes mental health outright.

At this autumn’s South Central Regional Conference, a motion by the author was passed calling for reforms to remove the inequities of the current charging regime.

Take two hypothetical examples.

Jon is 40 and has a weak thyroid. Although he has a well paid job, Jon does not have to pay for his thyroid medication, or for any other medication, no matter what it’s for.

25-year-old Samantha works part time, with an income of £17,000. This takes her over the financial thresholds for free prescriptions. She has asthma, but often cannot afford to fill her prescriptions. Samantha ends up in hospital with asthma several times a year, with frequent GP visits too.

As a doctor, I know that there are many real patients like this.

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Ed Fordham

Sleaford and North Hykeham: Lighting a beacon of liberal democracy

By Ed Fordham | Mon 21st November 2016 - 4:27 pm

ross-pepper

So what have the following years got in common? 2007, 2005, 1999, 1935 and 1937.  It might seem a bit unlikely, but they are the year of birth of five of our activists who came out, fed and watered activists, wrote envelopes, stuffed and folded and delivered in Sleaford and North Hykeham.

Yes, this is a snapshot insight into the most unlikely and optimistic by-election campaigns that Lincolnshire and, indeed I would venture, the East Midlands has ever seen.

On paper the odds and the basis for such optimism is very very low, but let’s go through a few elements.  We have two county councillors in the constituency and those seats successfully defended in 2017 should see us elect up to 7 councillors on North Kesteven District in 2019.  So that would be progress.  But it’s not enough.  So we are also working very hard in Sleaford Town.  That campaign, translated up in 2019, would elect a further 6 district councillors.  So that too would be progress.  But it’s not enough.  So we are working to activate our traditional Lincolnshire support base in some of the larger villages.  This is being done through contacting, motivating and empowering our members and critically our new members.

The means of doing this is very intensive, but the by-election is a great trigger and excuse so we are starting it all now.

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Keith Aspden

York responds on unaccompanied asylum-seeking children

By Keith Aspden | Mon 21st November 2016 - 3:06 pm

 

Around this time last year, I posted on Lib Dem Voice about York’s role in responding to the refugee crisis. I am very pleased that over the last year, York has been active in the Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme and in welcoming refugees to the city. We have a proud history of offering a home to those fleeing persecution and will continue our work to meet our humanitarian commitments.

A closely associated issue, increasingly prominent over the last few months, has been that of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Tim Farron and Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords have campaigned strongly for the government to do a huge amount more on this front. Early this year, Tim slammed the government’s response as ‘cold-hearted’ and ‘callous’. He was absolutely right – we were failing people who are the least able to help themselves. After months of pressure, the government accepted a commitment to resettle ‘up to 3,000’ children from within Europe.

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Paul Carroll

The heart weighs far more than the head

By Paul Carroll | Mon 21st November 2016 - 12:30 pm

please-dont-goIn David Thorpe’s recent post his opening sentence asked: “Ever lost a lover and then spent hours replaying the whole of the time you had together back in your mind?”

This sentence resonated with me and little did I think on the announcement of the referendum result that I would end up doing exactly this.  Being a bit of a news addict I think my initial reaction to the referendum was to find the whole thing quite exciting.  During the campaign it was a standard joke in our house to come home and say ‘I’m an inner today’, followed by the next day of ‘I’m an outer today’.  I researched and thought about the likely economic impact of Brexit.  Researched and tried to distil fact from fiction on immigration and budget contributions.  Still I was undecided. Why, when all the hard evidence pointed to remain?

Then one day I caught a glimpse of the cover article of Der Spiegel with ‘Please Don’t Go’ blazoned across a Union Jack.  Bang! My mind was made up and fixed. The EU is really made of people who wanted us to stay, our neighbours, friends and colleagues.  Europe is in our DNA, literally, even Boris Johnson’s family tree is testament to that.  Yes, we have arguments and sometimes we don’t treat each other particularly well but we are still a family. What were we thinking about? It took that headline to give me that emotional connection to the remain side of the EU debate.

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Ben Andrew

Labour did not crash the economy

By Ben Andrew | Mon 21st November 2016 - 10:07 am

 

After the financial crash, the Tories persuaded the public that they were the only party who could be trusted with the economy. Osborne’s message went something like this:

“Labour crashed the economy. They did this by spending too much, borrowing too much, and letting the budget deficit get too large. In order to create a strong economy, we need to get the deficit down. And the only way to do this is to implement spending cuts until our deficit reaches zero again.”

This narrative was a huge political success. Even now that we have a new Chancellor, and a supposedly new approach, the Conservatives still hold onto the reputation of being the only economically sensible party, built on the foundations laid by so-called Osbornomics. The problem is that it is absolute nonsense.

Their economic narrative is flawed in three ways.

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Caron Lindsay

Marking the Transgender Day of Remembrance

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 20th November 2016 - 5:40 pm

Transgender Day of RemembranceNovember 20th each year is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. It’s the day when we honour those who have lost their lives through transphobic violence. The list of those who have been murdered for being who they are is so harrowing to read.

Nobody should face fear, intimidation, discrimination and violence because of who they are. As the forces of intolerance appear to have the upper hand in politics in too many places, those of us who believe in freedom, diversity and equality have our work cut out for us.

This is a day to remember those who have died but also to re-affirm our own commitment to not put up with a world where this sort of thing happens. It isn’t going to become a more tolerant place by itself. We have to make it happen, one person at a time, by questioning prejudice whenever we see it, whether it’s round the dining room table with our grandparents, in the pub, at work or in the party.

LGBT+ Lib Dems has statements from Lorely Burt and LGBT+ secretary Zoe O’Connell, who is one of the few transgender people to have stood for Parliament.

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Dublin versus Dubs

By Office of Lord Roberts | Sun 20th November 2016 - 3:12 pm

 

Whilst the Home Secretary hails the arrival of 312 unaccompanied asylum seeking children as “a really good result”, the fact remains that domestic legislation allows for the UK to positively impact the lives of hundreds – even thousands – more children.

To explain, unaccompanied asylum seeking children can be brought to the UK under one of two systems. Firstly, the Family Reunification provisions of the Dublin III Regulations allow for asylum seekers who have family members who have already received international protection in another state to be transferred to join those family members and have their asylum claim determined by that country. This is rooted in EU asylum policy – meaning the Government has no choice but to comply with the legislation, and there is no limit to the number of children who can be brought to the UK.

On the other hand, the Dubs system of transfer allows for an unspecified number of unaccompanied children with or without family in the UK to be transferred into British care, providing that they arrived in Europe before 20th March 2016 and that it is deemed to be in the child’s “best interests” to be relocated. Thus, many children who may have been excluded from coming to the UK under the Dublin Regulations because they do not have family members in the UK, may now fall under the criteria of the Dubs amendment.

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Martin Roche

It’s time for LibDems to use the most potent word in the political lexicon

By Martin Roche | Sun 20th November 2016 - 12:30 pm

 

I’m a new Liberal Democrat, though I’ve called myself a social democrat for more than forty years now. In my youth I was an activist tribal Tory, but cast them forever from me before I was 25. Since then have been a fellow traveler of the soft Left, but now, as of three weeks ago, I am one of you.

I realised after 23rd June that it was time to properly join in the fightback for the sort of political values I’ve long held and that are at the heart of the LibDems.

Given 5 minutes I could give you an erudite and historically pretty accurate explanation of what the LibDems stand for.  That’s roughly four minutes thirty seconds too long. Like or not, brevity, clarity, simplicity and ruthless consistency are the vital elements of winning in today’s febrile communications world.

I know a bit about the art of communications, having worked in newspapers and spent 35 years in advertising and PR. Indeed, I spent ten of those years with “Mrs Thatcher’s favourite ad man,” Tim Bell. My value was probably that, not only could I make money, but that I saw the world through different eyes from the great majority of my personally delightful but unforgivingly Thatcherite colleagues. I was never, thankfully, invited to be part of anything with a Tory party label on it, but did relish helping the Yes to Europe campaigns in Malta and Sweden win their respective accession referendums.

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Ciaran McGonagle

John Bolton as Trump’s Secretary of State?

By Ciaran McGonagle | Sat 19th November 2016 - 1:27 pm

john-bolton

News that John Bolton is being considered for the role of Secretary of State in President-elect Trump’s administration should give liberals, multi-lateralists, indeed anyone who values human rights and the rule of law, much cause for much concern.

As you may recall, John Bolton served as both Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security and, temporarily, as Permanent Representative to the United Nations under the Bush administration. His brief tenure at the United Nations was cut short as the 2006 Democratic mid-term sweep removed any realistic prospect that Bolton’s nomination would be confirmed.

With Republican majorities now in place for at least the next 2 years, it seems unlikely that Trump’s will encounter similar problems with his own appointments.

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The Voice

More United joins Greens and Women’s Equality Party in endorsing Lib Dem Sarah Olney for Richmond Park

By The Voice | Sat 19th November 2016 - 11:59 am

More UnitedEarlier this week, More United consulted its members on whether to endorse Liberal Democrat candidate Sarah Olney in the Richmond Park by-election.

The result was pretty conclusive. From More United’s email email to supporters:

The result was overwhelming. 10,000 of you voted, and 96% said we should campaign for Sarah.

We think this is an amazing chance for us to have a real impact on the result of this by-election. Sarah has said she supports our principles and has put opposition to a hard Brexit at the centre of her campaign.

Sarah is facing a tough fight against Zac Goldsmith, but if she wins it will send the Government a clear message that millions of people believe in a more united, less divided Britain.

More United seeks to support candidates who support their five key principles:

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Mary Reid

Richmond Park – more pictures and a caption competition

By Mary Reid | Sat 19th November 2016 - 10:03 am

Richmond Park is on course to be the biggest Lib Dem by-election campaign ever. Last weekend the Campaign Team put a call-out for 1000 volunteers, and very nearly reached that target. This weekend the team is planning to deliver an attractive magazine across the whole constituency, as well as make serious inroads into the canvassing. There are always admin jobs to do in the Kingston office as well.

People have been turning up from all over the country. Yesterday, in the space of a few minutes, I chatted with a couple of new members who had come down from Macclesfield for three days to help, as well as volunteers from Newcastle and Hull.

richmond-park-by-election-12

Mark Williams and John Pugh out on the streets of Richmond.

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Caron Lindsay

Solid gains in vote share for Liberal Democrats in Council by-elections

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 18th November 2016 - 10:09 am

Last night’s by-elections saw solid gains in the Liberal Democrat vote share in 3 seats across England.

The Lib Dem vote went up a whopping 17.8% in Welwyn Hatfield:

In Bath and North East Somerset, where the Conservatives took a seat off the Greens, we were up almost 5%:

And in Misterton, Harborough, the benefits of actually standing a candidate turned out to be a very respectable 15% of the vote.

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Joe Otten

The Rustlings Road Tree Massacre

By Joe Otten | Thu 17th November 2016 - 5:20 pm

A knock on the door in the middle of the night. “Move your car or it will be towed”. Three peaceful protestors, including two public spirited women in their 70s, arrested for the crime of “suspicion of preventing lawful work“.

Is this an anti-terror operation? Is this happening in Putin’s Russia? No. It is a Labour council seeking to cut down eight trees on the highway, that residents have been campaigning to save for the last two years. Six of the eight trees could be saved according to the council’s own Independent Tree Panel – whose advice …

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Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron writes… “Help me to help the fight against homelessness”

By Tim Farron MP | Thu 17th November 2016 - 2:19 pm

This week is the 50th anniversary of the ground-breaking BBC film Cathy Come Home, the gripping and controversial 1966 film about poverty and homelessness.

It tells the story of Cathy and Reg, a couple with three young children who find their life spiralling into poverty when Reg loses his job. Cathy is left homeless and her children are taken away.

The film had a profound impact on me as a teenager. I watched it and decided to join Shelter. Then I realised I could do even more by getting involved in politics.

Although in the last 50 years there have been some changes, …

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Bernard Aris

Dutch D66 starts fightback against Trumpish Populism

By Bernard Aris | Thu 17th November 2016 - 10:43 am

In the aftermath of the Trump victory in the American elections, D66, the direct Dutch equivalent of the Lib Dems, has started a fightback both against the rising, fact-free and people-insulting populism personified by Trump, and against the appeasement-like reaction of the Dutch government on Trumps election.

It started not only with the usual statement on the party website by party leader Alexander Pechtold MP, but with D66 publishing small advertisements (with a large party logo) in national Dutch newspapers, in which we stated that the age of staying passive in the face of rising populism had passed, it was time to join a party willing to fight back like D66.

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David Thorpe

Responding to the anti-globalisation backlash

By David Thorpe | Thu 17th November 2016 - 9:23 am

Ever lost a lover and then spent hours replaying the whole of the time you had together back in your mind?

If you engage in such reflection it’s often possible to see with hindsight where the cracks started to appear, and the happiness shunted to a road leading to subsequent despair.

Liberals have been shell shocked by a 2016 that has produced a slew of political upsets, and created a stew of uncertainties about the prospects for a progressive future.

The elevation of Donald Trump to the White House is merely the latest in a long line of upsets that have confounded the pundits.

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Mark Valladares

The end of another day. Next week, hopefully, you’ll have Caron back…

By Mark Valladares | Wed 16th November 2016 - 10:26 pm

And so, another eventful day is over. I placed my first correspondent into permanent moderation, and kept the show on the road as far as possible. I leave you with the thoughts of the President of the ALDE Group in the European Parliament, Guy Verhofstadt, who is clearly looking forward to negotiations on Brexit…

It does appear that Boris hasn’t worked out …

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Scott Craig

Can Parliament vote against Brexit?

By Scott Craig | Wed 16th November 2016 - 5:05 pm

Regardless of the cries of the Brexiteers, the answer is simple. It can, if it wants to. Here’s why;

First and foremost Members of Parliament are representatives, they are not delegates. As representatives, they are free to, and it is their duty to, exercise their own judgement. Members cannot be and should never be prevented from exercising their conscience in casting their votes.

This duty applies in even greater measure to Peers. As (self-proclaimed) trustees of the nation, they must be willing to take decisions counter to the public mood when they consider it to be in the national interest. I cannot …

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Brian Paddick

Brian Paddick writes on efforts to protect our civil liberties

By Brian Paddick | Wed 16th November 2016 - 2:15 pm

Today the Investigatory Powers Bill overcame its final Parliamentary hurdle before becoming law. In the end the issue that held it up for a while was press regulation, not the powers of the state to intrude into our privacy.

In line with party policy, agreed at Lib Dem conference, we tabled dozens of amendments on significant issues that went to the very heart of the bill – while trivial Labour and Government amendments simply tinkered around the edges. Despite the Government’s best efforts to close down the debate, we fought hard and achieved close and careful line-by-line scrutiny of …

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Posted in News and Parliament | 4 Comments
Jonathan Fryer

Liberal International’s African Reach

By Jonathan Fryer | Wed 16th November 2016 - 12:15 pm

When Liberal International was founded in Oxford nearly 70 years ago it was very much a European affair. With the noble exception of Canada, Liberal parties and values were largely confined to northern Europe, but since then the picture has changed dramatically. As we in Britain lick our wounds from the double whammy of the Brexit vote and the triumph of Donald Trump in the United States let us take comfort from the fact that the Liberal family is growing worldwide. This was dramatically illustrated by the Liberal International (LI) Executive in Marrakesh, at which five new African parties – …

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Tagged , and | 1 Comment

“Liberal” means “radical” now. Embrace it.

By Doctor North | Wed 16th November 2016 - 10:04 am

I am a Millennial and I am a Liberal. The former just happened to me, like my skin colour, place of birth and shoe size; I take no pride in it, nor do I feel shame. The latter fact is something I chose for myself, and I am immensely proud of it. I reject hatred and violence as political tools. Why, then, am I writing anonymously?

I teach in a university. In the past few years I have seen more and more of my colleagues deliver lectures in which “liberalism” (not neoliberalism) is used as shorthand for exploitation and racism. Fewer …

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Pete Shallcross

“Don’t forget the congregation…”

By Pete Shallcross | Wed 16th November 2016 - 7:41 am

As a long time supporter of the party, through good times and bad, I was, like thousands of others, finally spurred to join the party on 8 May 2015. My contact with the party had, until this point, been limited to the odd email initiated by donations made during the 2011 and 2014 referenda. The tone of these communications was correctly pitched and gave potential and actual supporters plenty of good reasons to lend the party their vote – I can’t say the same about the (particularly electronic) communication with party members.

Confession time; I haven’t been at all active since …

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Mark Valladares

Welcome to my day (again) – 16 November 2016

By Mark Valladares | Wed 16th November 2016 - 7:12 am

Yes, another day. The LDV team are still a bit short-handed, and so I’m back in harness again this week.

It’s been another tough week for Theresa May’s administration, with suggestions that they haven’t got a plan yet, and that thousands more civil servants will be needed to deliver Brexit. I dimly recall that part of the problem with Europe was that there were too many bureaucrats… Ah well, at least we can be assured by the competence that they’ve displayed so far… Perhaps not.

There will be more news from Europe, as Guy Verhofstadt gently chides Boris Johnson on how Brexit …

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Joe Otten

It’s not about inequality

By Joe Otten | Tue 15th November 2016 - 5:06 pm

I recall after the financial crisis of 2008 everybody with an unconventional opinion on banking and monetary policy felt confirmed that this showed they had been right all along. Whether they believed in more regulation of banks or less, or in the superficially plausible but ultimately wrong-headed notion of banning bank lending altogether and making up the money supply by having the government print a lot extra – they felt proven right by events.

We are in danger of doing the same with Donald Trump’s victory. Last week Helen Flynn argued that it was about inequality. Thus the solution …

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Posted in Op-eds | 37 Comments
Joe Otten

More United consult members on endorsing Sarah Olney

By Joe Otten | Tue 15th November 2016 - 11:43 am

More United.uk the post-referendum cross-party campaign for an open tolerant and inclusive Britain, is consulting its members on whether to endorse Sarah Olney in the Richmond Park by-election.

This comes at a crucial moment as postal votes are landing and there is a concerted effort to speak to postal voters. If you can’t get to Richmond Park, just log into Connect and you will find a Virtual Phone Bank ready for you.

more-united

This decision by More United is a critical test of its core concept, of a willingness to endorse candidates from any one of a number of different parties, should they subscribe to the values. If it doesn’t endorse Sarah in Richmond Park, how can it ever deliver? The letter to members is as follows:

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Lucy Nethsingha

Make your views known to the Education Policy Working Group

By Lucy Nethsingha | Tue 15th November 2016 - 8:30 am

The Education Policy Working Group had a number of useful evidence sessions. We have heard from the teaching unions, representatives of the exam boards, academics and charities, and from researchers and leaders in think tanks.

There have been a number of themes which have emerged from these conversations as key areas where the working group should focus attention. There has also been a remarkable degree of unanimity from those giving evidence on the key problems facing education, although solutions are less easy to find!

Our first session was focused on the area of teacher recruitment and retention. It is …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | 29 Comments
Arnold Kiel

A populist Parliament

By Arnold Kiel | Mon 14th November 2016 - 4:31 pm

 

I am a German citizen and UK resident. I am also a fan, but not a member of the Liberal Democrats.

I appreciate your party’s stance on Brexit, but I urge you to go further:

Stop expressing misguided respect for a misguided referendum result. People want and deserve a better life, and you know Brexit will give them the opposite: Brexit impoverishes, endangers, brutalizes, and kills.

An MP voting with the Government on triggering Article 50 against his or her conscience is worse than Johnson or Farage, because he or she will not only be a populist, but will irreversibly go down in history as a legislating populist. MPs must protect the country and its people from harm, also and especially if self-inflicted.

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Chris Key

Liberal Democrats need to play smart on immigration and border controls

By Chris Key | Mon 14th November 2016 - 2:45 pm

If we are to learn from the lessons of Trump becoming President and the EU referendum, we progressive politicians must play smarter in the area of immigration. This does not mean aping Mr Trump or Nigel Farage but working out where the real blame lies for failures in our border controls and who has accountability for fixing them.

The current government has decided landlords and schools are suddenly  quasi immigration officers. Even the Daily Mail noted that the government pilot project to require landlords to check tenants rights to live in the UK had been an abject failure. Many parents at my own children’s school complained about the need to audit the nationalities of their children and where their parents were from. Parents were not even told this was optional and that they could refuse to complete the census. The head teacher complained of the administrative burden of this new dictat. Quite rightly so, given no extra resources were given to schools to carry out this work.

This brings me back to where I think we as Liberal politicians should be looking to do more around border controls. The introduction of proper exit checks last year was long overdue and the Lib Dems contributed to this in the Coalition. Yet individual landlords and schools are being asked to mop up the mess created by previous governments. Technology initiatives from the Labour government on immigration control during the 2000s cost up to £1 billion and were not fit for purpose.

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Ben Andrew

The Language of the Left – and how it alienates progressives from their own causes

By Ben Andrew | Mon 14th November 2016 - 12:17 pm

 

“Privilege”, “trigger warnings”, “safe spaces”, “mansplaining”, “tone policing” and “cultural appropriation”. These terms are the Language of the Left. Anyone who has talked politics with lefties will be familiar with the way that they are thrown around in discussions willy-nilly. And each of them describes a problem which should be taken seriously.

Take “mansplaining” for example: when men explain things in a patronizing way to women, because of an imagined authority on a certain subject. This happens all the time. It happens in offices; at dinner tables; on television; in politics. If you haven’t seen this in action you’re just not looking hard enough. And “trigger warnings” serve an important purpose as well. People who suffer from PTSD after sexual assault can be severely distressed when reading descriptions of rape, for example. Flagging this up to avoid aggravating their condition is no different from warning epileptics when there will be flashing images on TV. It’s completely sensible.

But once these terms become trump cards which can automatically win arguments and shut down discussions, then mission creep seeps in, as people use them more and more lazily. People don’t just use trigger warnings to flag up distressing content any more. They splash them in front of any Daily Mail article which they disagree with, and claim they are triggered every time they hear an opinion which they don’t like.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 145 Comments
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