Steve Trevethan

Is austerity working? And do all debts have to be paid?

By Steve Trevethan | Mon 5th September 2016 - 9:32 am

 

These questions invite binary “Yes” or “No” responses. More considered approaches exist. We need to consider the economic consequences of debt repayment, structural and attitudinal causes and contributions, responsibility for debts both particular and general, beneficiaries and losers, and, how they may be prevented in the future. Also, can such enormous debts be paid?

This requires analysis and accurate, accessible language. In Economics and Finance, that which has different labels is sometimes not significantly different and that which is under one label has significant differences. For example, money consists mainly of credit creation since loans create deposits and loans are debts.

Debt is a form of relationship: financial activity connects and affects people.

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Caron Lindsay

A whole world of sexist fail in today’s Sunday Times

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 4th September 2016 - 4:35 pm

It’s hard to imagine how today’s Sunday Times could possibly have got it more wrong.

It trailed that it had a “tantalising secret” about Nicola Sturgeon’s private life.

That turned out to be the fact that, five years ago, she had a miscarriage. What a crass way to headline an intensely painful experience.

And to add insult to injury, the paper accompanied the article with a panel featuring childless politicians. All of them were female.

As ever, women are judged by different standards. The excellent Women 50/50 campaign group made the point visually:

It was the Sunday Times sister paper, The Times, which published that interview when Andrea Leadsom suggested that being a mum meant that she “had a real stake in the future of this country.” Some culture change in that organisation is urgently required.

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The Voice

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

By The Voice | Sun 4th September 2016 - 2:10 pm

7 bestMany thanks to the 11,300  visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…

Lib Dems must enthusiastically occupy the clear pro EU space – nobody else will (90 comments) by Caron Lindsay

Vince Cable writes…What Brexit means (41 comments) by Vince Cable

Open Britain divides attention (30 comments) by Joe Otten

Please understand what The Alternative is about (34 comments) by Chris Bowers

Let’s get tough on the causes of euroscepticism (58 comments) by John Bland

Jenny Willott writes: Is Citizens’ Income the answer to the failures of our social security system? (64 comments) by Jenny Willott

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Kelly-Marie Blundell

Lib Dems march for Europe

By Kelly-Marie Blundell | Sun 4th September 2016 - 12:40 pm

Lib Dems at start of March for EuropeEU nailsThousands of people across the UK Marched for Europe yesterday, with demonstrations in London, Bristol, Edinburgh, Oxford and Cambridge plus many more.

In London we put on a huge Lib Dem splash, with more than 300 Lib Dems joining us at the start in Marble Arch. An army of volunteers distributed placards, balloons and flyers. There were so many of us, police escorted us down to the main march on Park Lane!

President Sal Brinton fronted the march, leading a rally of Lib Dems from a banner at the front, flanked by Catherine Bearder MEP and Baroness Sarah Ludford as well as Parliamentary Candidate for St Albans Daisy Cooper and some of our Newbie members Ukonu Obasi and Elizabeth Barnard.

The march took on quite a pace, leading us down Picadilly and on to Trafalgur Square before ending at Parliament Square. Along the route we were chanting ‘We love you EU, we do’ and ‘We don’t want no Brexit’ with the use of a small megaphone and Bradley Hiller-Smith’s melodic tones! 

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The Voice

What’s on in our Parliaments this week? 5-9 September 2016

By The Voice | Sun 4th September 2016 - 11:06 am

Scottish Parliament 3So, it’s term-time again. After a frenetic and dramatic end to the last parliamentary session, everyone has done their best to make sure it looks like nothing is happening over the past 6 weeks.

That’s all over now, though. The Westminster and Scottish parliaments are back in session this week.  Wales has another week off.

It’s time to get to grips with the major issues around Brexit. That’s going to be the only game in town for quite some time.

Holyrood

There are three major items of business this week. The first is a two day debate on the SNP Government’s plans for the year ahead.

They will include a Social Security Bill to take account of the new powers coming to Holyrood. The government has also stated that its key priorities are educational attainment (which it intends to tackle by national testing rather than more resources) and the economy. They will also be introducing measures on warm homes and climate change.

Nicola Sturgeon will be making a statement on Scotland’s place in Europe. Last week, Willie Rennie said that she was talking too much about independence. Will she offer any other approach?

Finally, there will be an update on the controversial named person scheme which was ruled illegal earlier this Summer. How will the government tackle the requirements of the court judgement?

Westminster

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Caron Lindsay

Tweets from March for Europe as Huppert and Bearder address crowds

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 3rd September 2016 - 6:07 pm

In London, Cambridge, Birmingham and Edinburgh, tens of thousands of people gathered to march in favour of Britain’s place in the European Union.

Here are some of the best tweets and social media posts.

The London March was massive:

An early photo as the Lib Dem contingent gathered at Marble Arch.

Catherine Bearder gave one of the keynote speeches:

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The Voice

Lib Dems gather for March for Europe

By The Voice | Sat 3rd September 2016 - 11:54 am

On a traffic island near Marble Arch, Lib Dems are gathering to take part in the March for Europe

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Caron Lindsay

Clegg in the Guardian: “Why on earth would you not want to try and do s**t?”

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 3rd September 2016 - 11:08 am

We’re going to be hearing quite a lot from Nick Clegg over the next couple of weeks in the run up to his book being published on 15 September.

Today he has a long interview with the Guardian in which he talks at length about some of the key moments of the Coalition. Just to get this over with. I come from the Highlands of Scotland. If any journalist had written about some of the villages I love in the same patronising way that Clegg’s interviewer, Simon Hattenstone, did about Miriam’s home town in Spain, I’d be furious.

Whilst I have often disagreed with decisions that Nick took during the Coalition years, I stand by my long held view that he was often unfairly criticised, too. We can see with ever-increasing clarity that he brought a lot of common sense and stability to government. The minute he and the Liberal Democrats vacated Whitehall, everything started to fall apart. We are suffering the consequences of an arrogant Tory party governing exclusively in its own interests.

Naivety

Any feeling that we might have had that we could have been a lot better prepared for the realities of government is confirmed by the interview. However, the caveat is, of course, that we onlookers have the benefit of hindsight now and detachment at the time. Nick does admit to what appears to be astonishing naivety. It perhaps underlines the fact that he should maybe have had more people around him who had spent years fighting the Tories and knew first hand what they were capable of.

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Stephen Tall

LibDemVoice Fantasy Football League: August manager of the month

By Stephen Tall | Sat 3rd September 2016 - 8:00 am

Our first update from the LDV Fantasy Football League. The season’s just three weeks’ old, but already we’re in recess as international action takes pride of place this weekend.

Congratulations to LDV team member, Alan Muhammed, who’s our first Manager of the Month — his Shantastic XI amassed an impressive 194 points, placing him in the top 1% of the league’s 3.7 million global players.

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Chris White

Councillors: Conference is for you too!

By Chris White | Fri 2nd September 2016 - 3:46 pm

2015 policy pitch autumn conference by Paul WalterThe vast majority of Liberal Democrat councillors don’t go to conference. There are good reasons, of course: locations, cost, time (especially sudden by-elections!). But there are always overwhelmingly good reasons to attend.

In the first place it is always amazing just how many colleagues from neighbouring authorities you come across and with whom you can share ideas, problems and even gossip. You may even come across members of your own council with whom perhaps you need to spend more time on business not entirely dictated by council officers.

Naturally, the Conference agenda and the fringe programme provide the main focus. This year’s Autumn Conference includes motions on homelessness (F9), parent governors (F20), as well as a question and answer session on Education (F19), which are of obvious interest to councillors. Less obvious are the various constitutional amendments, which, among other things, will secure councillor influence on key party bodies such as the new Federal Board and the Campaigns Committee. Dull, maybe, but eminently worthy.

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Caron Lindsay

What the SNP’s listening exercise on independence actually means

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 2nd September 2016 - 1:46 pm

It is no surprise that the SNP continues to focus on independence. They are a nationalist party. It’s what they do. This morning, Nicola Sturgeon shifted her focus away from finding options for Scotland post Brexit, from fixing the education system that’s falling apart, from sorting out the huge bottlenecks in the health system, from ensuring decent mental health care and all the other things that she’s paid to do to concentrate on the next push for independence.

Scotland’s people are invited to take part in a survey giving their views on independence. All 120,000 SNP members are charged with speaking to 5 people a month for the next 3 months. This is not a government initiative. It’s an SNP one. People should be very clear what they are doing when they respond to the survey.

Although it’s introduced as a National Survey, without any SNP branding on it, it is simply a massive data collection exercise for the SNP.  People could answer this thing without realising that.

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William Hobhouse

Don’t stand a candidate

By William Hobhouse | Fri 2nd September 2016 - 12:14 pm

I have wondered many times in the last few years whether Lib Dems really want PR. And the reason for this scepticism is that we keep propping up First Past The Post (FPTP) in the way we campaign and act politically – with disastrous results for our political success, our influence within government and for liberalism across the UK.

The arguments for a change in the electoral system are well known – for every million votes cast for a party at the 2015 general election , the Greens won one seat, UKIP won a quarter of a seat, the Lib Dems won 3, Labour 25, Conservatives 29 and the SNP 39. The figures might change a little from election to election, but the unfairness won’t.

For a generation, Lib Dems have worked to win within FPTP by targeting individual wards or constituencies, and this has been a successful strategy compared to other smaller parties. But it has never achieved democratic parity with Labour or the Conservatives. For example, at our high point of national vote in the general election of 2010, it took 120,000 votes to elect a Lib Dem MP and 35,000 to elect a Conservative. Our leaders accepted the reality of FPTP and we took our place in government based not on our national vote but on our number of MPs. We have all seen the consequences, and they are not pleasant for our party, however optimistic we all like to be.

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Caron Lindsay

LibLink: Willie Rennie: Why Sturgeon no longer has my backing over Brexit

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 2nd September 2016 - 10:45 am

In June, Nicola Sturgeon erected a very big tent as she said she was going to explore all options to ensure Scotland’s continuing place in the EU, given the huge Remain majority north of the border.

Since then, SNP ministers seem to have narrowed the options to independence. They are talking about nothing else. Mike Russell, a man who spent 7 years as education secretary upsetting people, has been appointed as Brexit minister. It’s not the best appointment to a job that needs finesse and diplomacy.

Sturgeon, says Willie Rennie in an article for the Scotsman, has broken the …

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Caron Lindsay

Another good night on the by-election front

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 2nd September 2016 - 8:17 am

It’s been another night of gains for the Liberal Democrats in local elections.

In Cornwall, we gained our 5th seat of the year, this time from UKIP whose vote tanked, in the Four Lanes ward, going from a standing start to getting 34.7% of the vote:

In Hampshire, a thrilling Parish Council contest saw Jack Davies elected after the drawing of lots. He and the Conservative candidate had 401 votes each. No doubt that will be brought up in training sessions ad infinitum to highlight the importance of keeping going until the polls close.

In Otley, we held two town council seats.

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Jenny Willott

Jenny Willott writes: Is Citizens’ Income the answer to the failures of our social security system?

By Jenny Willott | Thu 1st September 2016 - 11:55 am

I recently wrote a piece for Lib Dem Voice about “Mending the Safety Net”, the policy paper on social security which will be discussed at conference in Brighton.  One of the issues raised in the comment on the piece was, understandably, why the group ended up not supporting a move to a Citizen’s Income.  Rather than a long comment on the original piece, I thought it would be helpful to explain the groups view in a separate post.

In a nutshell, the Citizen’s Income pays the same amount to every resident, regardless of whether they are in work or not.  There is no means testing and no conditions apply to those receiving the payment.  Every citizen receives the same amount, although in some schemes there are different amounts for children, working age adults and pensioners.  There are a number of different monikers and different ways of doing similar things, such as Negative Income Tax and Universal Basic Income, most of which we looked into, but for simplicity I’m just going to refer to ‘Citizen’s Income’ throughout.

At first glance it seems simple and easy to administer, and could help put an end to the divisive ‘them versus us’ narrative that has infected the debate on welfare.

That is why I and many others on the social security group were initially very attracted to the idea. We read a lot about it and invited a number of people who have advocated the policy to give evidence to the group. 

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John Bland

Let’s get tough on the causes of eurosceptism

By John Bland | Thu 1st September 2016 - 9:12 am

At the very outset of the referendum campaign both Norman Lamb and Anna Soubry took part in a BBC Radio 4 Any Questions programme broadcast from Spalding. During that debate a North Lincolnshire farmer appearing on the panel alongside Kate Hoey for the leave side said he wanted free movement of labour to remain, because he would be unable to recruit workers without it. He also made positive remarks about the diverse nature of shops in the town. Both remarks resulted in audible boos from the audience, showing the strength of feeling in the hall. Frankly you would not have heard a stauncher defender of the EU than Anna and Norman that evening. Just what the Remain campaign was up against became very clear.

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Caron Lindsay

In Full: Tim Farron’s speech to the IPPR: Lib Dems will find a “more humane, effective, successful way of doing economics”

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 31st August 2016 - 2:59 pm

We like publishing speeches in full on LDV, partly for the historical record – things can be taken down from the party website if they become inconvenient after the passage of time, but they stay here – and partly because it’s useful to see the whole speech rather than some out of context quotes.

Here is Tim Farron’s speech to the IPPR in Manchester this morning. It doesn’t get into the nitty gritty of Brexit, or the party’s response to it, the subject of a fair bit of discussion in recent days. He does however set out the Lib Dem stall, recognising that the main battle in politics at the moment is between liberalism and intolerance and nationalism.

He’s also very clear about making an offer that unites those who voted Remain and Leave so that those who have lost out due to globalisation and the banking collapse can feel that the system is working for them too.

Here is the speech in full:

Like so many people, I felt shocked and emotional about the result of the vote on 23 June.

I know many people who wept at the news.

I can understand that.

Not because I love the specific institutions of the European Union, but because I feel European.

I also feel British. And English.

And northern.  And I don’t feel any conflict between those identities, in fact they reinforce each other.

But the result seemed to throw this balance into doubt.

And yes, I also felt angry.

I still feel angry now, but perhaps for a different reason.

Because never in recent history have we, in the political classes, let down the people of this country so disastrously.

And I make no distinction here between those who voted to Remain and those who voted to Leave.

They were battered with dodgy statistics. From both sides.

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Matthew Clark

Young, disabled and believed in

By Matthew Clark | Wed 31st August 2016 - 1:30 pm

glasgow conference 2014I am young and partially sighted (registered blind so far as law is concerned). At times it can feel as if these factors make me fairly insignificant in economic and political society.

Factually, I have far less economic potential than my parents. What little savings are in my name have been scuppered to get through university. My peers and I face harsher economic prospects with less opportunity to buy and control our own destinies than our parents.

Politically, I am part of a demographic that isn’t valued or represented by the quintessential modern politician, who learning from trends set by 1980s Conservatives (and followed still by that party today) seeks victory based on cold statistics and media spin. It helps them win in a First Past The Post system, but that comes at cost of developing best policy for, including engagement with, and seeking to represent, young people. So many of us cannot vote for being too young, and by voting age not enough young people do vote. So we do not entice this winning obsessive type politician. The system is biased against the future generation, and broken.

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Jenny Randerson

Baroness Jenny Randerson writes…Consumer rights should cover train franchises

By Jenny Randerson | Wed 31st August 2016 - 11:55 am

The recent poor performance of the Southern rail franchise, operated by Govia Thameslink Railway, have cast concern at the Government’s decision to exclude rail from the 2015 Consumer Rights Act. An Act which allows customers to be adequately compensated for any excessive disruption. In addition, passengers being forced to travel in cramped conditions when ironically, there are tight regulations preventing the overcrowding of animals when they are transported by train, but no similar rules relate to people.

Recent news headlines have been filled with these chaotic tales and the genuine distress of travellers, but what is more worrying is that this relentless and overwhelmingly negative impact appears to have no end in sight despite the recent reinstatement of 119 services. Both Tim and I have provided numerous comments on how the Government should and must intervene in a situation that is completely and utterly out of hand, and we share the exasperation of GTR’s customers.

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Caron Lindsay

Two reports highlight ongoing need for feminism

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 31st August 2016 - 11:12 am

Two reports today show that feminism’s work is far from done.

A worrying analysis from the Children’s Society says that 1 in 7 girls are unhappy with more than 1 in 3 being particularly anxious over their appearance.  Given the massive media pressure on what constitutes beauty, it’s hardly surprising that body image remains such a strong trigger of unhappiness.

Girls suffer significantly more unhappiness than boys and this feeds into greater rates of mental ill health.

It’s not difficult to see why if you look at the SRE Now tag on Twitter and read Laura Bates’ and Sarah Green’s recent Telegraph article which highlights the issues of sexual harassment girls face in school. Even in primary school, damaging attitudes about gender roles and consent are prevalent. Green and Bates say:

The evidence is not just anecdotal. A recent BBC Freedom of Information request revealed that 5,500 alleged sexual offences, including 600 rapes, were reported to police as having taken place in schools over three years. That’s an average of almost exactly one rape per school day. Meanwhile, a YouGov survey for the End Violence Against Women coalition revealed that almost one in three 16-18 year old girls experienced unwanted sexual touching at school.

Against this backdrop, we desperately need to educate children about concepts like consent, respect and healthy relationships. But at present, there is no requirement for schools to teach anything apart from the basic biology of sex.

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The Voice

Farron: We must not let racists hijack the referendum result

By The Voice | Wed 31st August 2016 - 9:14 am

As the Cabinet gathers rather awkwardly at Chequers to discuss the implementation of Brexit, Tim Farron makes a keynote speech to the Institute of Public Policy Research in Manchester this morning.

It will be interesting to see if and how he tackles the question of the Open Britain organisation, much discussed on here in the last couple of days.

The advance extracts of his speech concentrate on the need to do something about the increase in hatred and open racism since the referendum and he again emphasises that the Liberal Democrats will stand up for those EU citizens already living here.

He also addresses the real concerns and disadvantages faced by many of those who voted to leave the EU.

Here’s what he is going to say on these topics:

Divided

We, the political classes, have left a country bitterly divided as a result.

Between parents and children, families, neighbours.

Between the nations of our own union, who have worked and fought together for centuries.

Between us and our continental neighbours.

And now the biggest danger of them all.

That because of those divisions, we are in danger of letting malevolent forces hijack the result.

Plenty of my mates voted leave and I can tell you that the majority of those who did vote leave are utterly appalled that Farage, Le Pen and their ilk now seek to claim the result as a victory for their hateful brand of intolerance, racism and insularity.  Britain is better than that.

But I’m not so blinded by those emotions that I don’t see the new divisions that are opening up between us.

New political boundaries which chop the old certainties of Tory and Labour into little pieces.

Because there’s a new battle emerging.

Between the forces of tolerant liberalism and intolerant, closed-minded nationalism.

And, of course, you know that, as leader of the Liberal Democrats, which side I’m on.

To EU citizens

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Joe Otten

Open Britain divides opinion

By Joe Otten | Tue 30th August 2016 - 4:05 pm

Yesterday’s announcement of Stronger In’s rebranding as Open Britain pushing for greatest possible openness, and greatest retention of the benefits of EU membership post-referendum has divided opinion.

Statements like this one

Despite being drawn from different political parties, all of us campaigned proudly and passionately for Britain to remain in the European Union. The result was not the one we wanted, but of course we respect the democratically expressed verdict of the British people.

The UK may have voted to leave the EU, but the certainty ends there. What does Brexit actually mean? Europe will continue to be our biggest trading partner and

…

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Posted in Op-eds | 31 Comments

Nuclear weapons policy: the zero option

By Kevin White | Tue 30th August 2016 - 2:21 pm

Members of the Nuclear Weapons Working Group are presenting their personal views as part of a wider consultation process into the party’s future policy on nuclear weapons. The full consultation paper can be found at www.libdems.org.uk/autumn-conference-16-policypapers and the consultation window runs until 28 October. Party members are invited to attend the consultation session at party conference in Brighton, to be held on Saturday 17 September at 1pm in the Balmoral Room of the Hilton.

1945, August 6, 8.15am. Slicing through the clear blue sky, a previously unknown “absolute evil” is unleashed on Hiroshima instantly searing the entire city, Koreans, Chinese, Southeast Asians, American prisoners of war, children, the elderly and other innocent people are slaughtered. By the end of the year 140,000 are dead.
Witness, a boy of 17: “Charred corpses blocked the road. An eerie stench filled my nose. A sea of fire spread as far as I could see. Hiroshima was a living hell

Witness, a girl of 18: “I was covered in blood. Around me were people with skin flayed from their backs hanging all the way to their feet – crying, screaming, begging for water”.

– Taken from the Peace declaration of the City of Hiroshima’s Mayor.

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Vince Cable

Vince Cable writes: What Brexit means

By Vince Cable | Tue 30th August 2016 - 12:36 pm

 

I appreciated the large response to my post-referendum blog on the 48 Movement.  The Bank Holiday Sunday press reminds us that this issue will very soon return with a vengeance as the politicians come back from their holidays.  The Brexit hardliners in the Tory party are already preparing their narrative of betrayal by Remainer ministers and sabotage by civil servants.

When I wrote my note there was agreement on many points, not least the negative impacts which still await us, but two things I said triggered a negative reaction.  One was my argument that the result was final and could not be wished away by legal subterfuge or attempts to reverse the vote.  I see that  Owen Smith in the Labour leadership contest is arguing for a re-run through a second referendum and that position appeals to many in our own party.  There will be debate on this issue at Conference. Since, unlike Labour, we have nothing to prove on the EU issue I hope we can be more realistic.  The most recent polls show that almost all Brexit voters and half of Remainers accept the result however much we deplore it.  Shock, anger and remorse are very understandable but not if these harden into the conviction that the majority of voters are gullible fools.

The second point of controversy was my view that the free movement of EU labour should not be regarded as an inviolable principle, but is now politically unsustainable and of questionable merit when at the expense of non-EU migration.  There are better ways of being liberal on immigration: opposing the self-harming stupidity of the current ‘crack-down’ on overseas, non-EU, students to help Theresa May meet her absurd target; defending the position of EU nationals who are already resident here; promoting a less pusillanimous approach to refugees, as Tim Farron has been doing.

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Eduardo Reyes

How to treat a new Labour party

By Eduardo Reyes | Tue 30th August 2016 - 10:54 am

We need to talk about Labour. Specifically, we need to start talking about us and Labour.

Not the bit of the party that Jeremy Corbyn gets to keep after its leadership election – the trademark and some very shouty people – but about our attitude to, and relations with, the c.170 MPs who will likely decide that that they need another vehicle to jump into when Owen Smith loses, and who would then enter the next election as some mutated strain of Labour.

They will be attempting something quite difficult, and it will be messy.

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Posted in Op-eds | 37 Comments
John Bicknell

Save our MPs

By John Bicknell | Tue 30th August 2016 - 9:12 am

On September 13 we are due to see the deliberations on the proposed boundary review, which will reduce the number of seats at Westminster from 650 to 600. The number of parliamentary constituencies has varied over time; since the split of Ireland in 1922, it has ranged between 615 and 659, but it has not been below that range since the 18th century.

House of Commons. Crown Copyright applies to this photo - http://www.flickr.com/photos/uk_parliament/4642915654/

In 1921, the UK’s population stood at 44.027 million, so, in 1922, there were 71,589 people (not electors), per constituency. Under these propsals, with the UK population, based on the 2011 census, at 63.182 million, there will be 105,303 per constituency. If this change in ratio was replicated in terms of doctors or teachers, there would quite rightly be an uproar. Due to the low public esteem in which politicians are held, it is quite easy for the government to get away with it, on the basis of cost saving. Nevertheless, if a member of the public feels themselves aggrieved, they will often ‘write to their MP’, with the expectation that their problem will be resolved, or at least addressed, in a speedy manner. With a larger population to deal with, this will become harder for MPs to achieve. The cost savings, in terms of salary, and accompanying expenses, are negligible in the context of total public expenditure.

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Jacquie Bell

To realms unknown

By Jacquie Bell | Mon 29th August 2016 - 3:46 pm

North Korea 2

I have long used Voyages Jules Verne for interesting places to visit.

In 2012 one flyer caught my notice. The chance of a trip to the hermit nation, North Korea. I instantly booked up. This trip is no longer on offer and I am pleased I took the chance in May 2013.

To begin, it is the only country where I have had to fill in a pre visa application form. It is certain that my son, as a former RAF intelligence officer, would not have got in. I was pleased that, despite being a former East Lothian Councillor, I got a visa.

Flights are only on Air Koryo from Beijing. Eat well before – in flight food was a tasteless cold hamburger. The in flight magazine is Kim propaganda.

Having arrived you need to go with the flow and pay heed to regulations. I was on one of the first tours where tourists were allowed to keep their mobiles – although there was no connection anyway. First night food  at the Koryo Hotel was grey boiled chicken, but it got better. One tour member rarely got off the bus. I wondered why she had booked given the clear statements by the tour company about severe restrictions on movement and food quality.

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Caron Lindsay

Liberal Democrats must enthusiastically occupy the clear pro EU space – nobody else will

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 29th August 2016 - 12:01 pm

The Liberal Democrats have historically been enthusiastically pro EU. The strength of that enthusiasm, it’s fair to say, has not always been uniform. While a small number of Liberal Democrats campaigned to leave the EU, the vast majority of us wanted to remain. That was very clear to the tens of thousands who have joined us in the aftermath of the vote to leave.

As a party during the referendum, we did more than any other to campaign for a Remain vote. That’s quite a staggering achievement given our size and resources compared to the Labour party.

However, there are signs now that the consensus is starting to develop some fault lines. Our position in the aftermath of the referendum has been very clear. We campaign to stay or go back in to the EU at the next election. We want the voters to have their say on the Brexit deal. It’s only polite, really, given that they weren’t given any indication about what it would look like before they voted.

I don’t want to over-egg this particular pudding, but it looks like our general unity as a party on this is now under threat. Many Liberal Democrats  have been very concerned to see that Norman Lamb and Nick Clegg have endorsed Open Britain, the organisation formerly known as Britain Stronger in Europe.  Open Britain accepts the referendum result as final even though they also accept that nobody knows what they actually voted for. They will not be calling for a second referendum which seems to be a bizarre and contradictory stance to me.

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Mary Reid

Conference Access Fund helps more members to attend

By Mary Reid | Mon 29th August 2016 - 10:52 am

Rally entertainment Spring Conference Liverpool March 2015 Photo by Liberal Democrats

Spring Conference 2016 saw the launch of the Conference Access Fund, which makes grants to members to enable them to attend conference. It was pretty successful at York, and is proving to be even more popular this time round for Brighton.

When members register for Conference they are asked if they would like to make a donation to the fund and they have been amazingly generous. The fund is ring-fenced and any that is not spent is carried over to the next conference.

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Chris Bowers

Please understand what The Alternative is about

By Chris Bowers | Sun 28th August 2016 - 8:01 pm

The AlternativeJudging by the reaction to Andrew George’s post last week  there seems to be a lot of unnecessary fretting among Liberal Democrats caused by ‘The Alternative’, the book I have co-edited with the Labour and Green MPs Lisa Nandy and Caroline Lucas. Allow me to explain why I think some people are getting the wrong end of the stick.

I fully understand the views of those who say Labour is not a progressive party, and that we sometimes have more in common with the liberal wing of the Conservatives than we do with Labour or the nationalist parties. Those views can be defended, but they don’t alter the practical reality of what we face.

Everyone is talking about how we were hammered at the 2015 election, which we were in relative terms, but the 8% of the vote we polled would have given us around 55 seats if we’d had a proportional election system, which was roughly what we had in the last parliament.

As a liberal, I’d happily accept whatever our core vote is – probably something between 8% and 20% – under PR. We’d probably never be a party leading a government, but we’d have real influence, and could pursue liberal-democratic policies in association with whichever other parties were receptive to our ideas.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 36 Comments
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