Caron Lindsay

Rennie’s penny on tax for education is progressive – IPPR

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 13th April 2016 - 9:04 am

The Institute of Public Policy Research Scotland has been looking at the parties’ tax plans ahead of the Scottish parliament elections.

The SNP has had a go at us for raising the basic rate of tax for workers, making out like they are protecting the low paid. In fact, IPPR says that our plans are progressive and will deliver what we say they will.

 Willie Rennie has welcomed this conclusion.

The IPPR shows that the Lib Dems’ penny (why do we not call it Rennie’s penny?) for education will raise £475 million a year, with almost half of that revenue coming from the richest 12%.

The IPPR research also shows that the Conservatives’ plans help the richest, giving those on highest incomes an extra £390 a year.

Willie said:

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The Voice

Welsh Lib Dems plan £20 million boost for hill farmers

By The Voice | Tue 12th April 2016 - 9:35 pm

The Welsh Liberal Democrats have announced plans to help hill farmers, recognising the difficulties they face in farming challenging terrain.

They include £20 million package for hill farmers and plans to enable farmers to be able to improve their resilience and competitiveness.

They say they are passionate about protecting Wales’ proud farming tradition and that farmers in Wales produce some of the greatest produce in the world, but too often they are not getting the support they need from an out of touch Labour Government.

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Caron Lindsay

Watch: The day they let Willie Rennie fly a plane

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 12th April 2016 - 8:53 pm

That should strike fear into the heart of anyone who has ever driven with Willie! Or maybe it’s just that I’m ultra cautious on the road.

Today, Willie went on a training flight with the UK Civil Air Patrol, who provided air support to Tayside Police prior to the SNP’s disastrous merger of Scotland’s Police forces.

The point of his visit was to outline what he would do to restore accountability to the Police service. The party would not do another top down re-organisation, but would ensure that local councils had control of the policing plan in their area to ensure that it meets their needs. Since the merger, it’s been very much a roll-out of what used to happen in Strathclyde across the country. That resulted in armed police being used for routine duties in places like Inverness, much against the views of the local community. After the intervention of the Liberal Democrats, this was stopped.

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Caron Lindsay

Seven candidates and an electorate of three – the strangest by-election ever?

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 12th April 2016 - 7:53 pm

By next Tuesday, we’ll have a new parliamentarian, a new hereditary member of the House of Lords. A House of Lords by-election is being held following the death last month of Eric Avebury, who is already very much missed.

I’m not going to lie, that doesn’t sit terribly comfortably with me. The idea that you could get a place determining the laws we all have to live by just because you were lucky enough to be your parents’ firstborn son is the first big problem. The second logically follows on – it’s an all male electorate deciding from an all male field.  Half of me wonders if we couldn’t have just said “No, this is archaic, we aren’t going to do it.” However, is it really that much worse than a parliamentary chamber that’s appointed? We don’t like it, but there’s a lot of good work it can do. We’re saddled with a majority Conservative Government stitching up the political system in its favour despite having been elected by just over a third of the electorate. The Lords have frustrated them on several occasions over really important issues like housing, immigration and tax credits.  Another Liberal Democrat on the benches has to be a good thing.

There are seven candidates for the place and an electorate of just three, the remaining Liberal Democrat hereditary peers, Dominic Addington, Patrick Glasgow and Raymond Asquith.

Ballot papers are available from today and the result will be announced on Tuesday 19th. Electoral Reform Services have been engaged for the not very onerous task of counting the ballot papers and determining the result.

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Dee Doocey

‘Fee waiver’ system for immigrants not working

By Dee Doocey | Tue 12th April 2016 - 3:16 pm

Much like schoolchildren, Peers have returned from the Easter break this week. We’re now within a month or so of the end of this parliamentary ‘session’, and so there will be lots of battles as the government attempts to secure the last parts of its legislative agenda for this year.

Looking at the business ahead, on immigration, on housing and on trade union legislation, I don’t envy the task of our team leaders and whips. They’ve got to decide which are the crunch issues on which we can bring together a coalition of peers to beat the Government in …

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Caron Lindsay

Tim Farron visits refugee camps in Greece – “Real people in desperate circumstances fleeing war”

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 12th April 2016 - 2:05 pm

The news is constantly full of big numbers, thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people heading to Europe to escape war and destruction. Tim Farron is in Greece today, talking to some of them. What’s very clear is that behind those big numbers are individual people and families, just like ours, who had been living peaceable lives, getting on with their jobs, sending their children to school, just like the rest of us. They have been displaced by events beyond their control, war, violence, destruction and seek a place of safety where they can contribute to society and get on with their lives.

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Baroness Cathy Bakewell

The tirade of Government defeats on housing has begun

By Baroness Cathy Bakewell | Tue 12th April 2016 - 12:34 pm

warmer homesA few weeks ago I wrote on Lib Dem Voice about the full throttle attack that Lib Dems in the Lords are undertaking on the Housing and Planning Bill – one of the shoddiest pieces of legislation put before Parliament for well over a decade.

Yesterday the votes began and the Government was defeated twice – a sign of things to come. Getting this controversial bill through may prove Cameron’s toughest legislative battle yet.

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Joe Otten

Brexit as political arson by David Miliband

By Joe Otten | Tue 12th April 2016 - 10:40 am

It isn’t the done thing here to link to opinion pieces in the newspapers by Labour politicians. So much that I’m not even sure what category to use. We have LibLink for links to articles by Liberal Democrats, and we have the slightly oddly named “Independent View” for articles by non-members.

But sometimes, hang the taxonomy, this is important enough to link to anyway.

David Miliband steps away from arguments over the costs of membership and Brexit, of whether we could get back the agreements on trade, policing, etc, that Brexit would tear up, the implications, if any, on immigration. Instead he looks at the bigger picture.

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Antony Hook

EURef: Netherlands vote on Ukraine trade deal underlines no guarantees for UK

By Antony Hook | Tue 12th April 2016 - 9:02 am

Infacts has a good short article on why Farage is a fool to crow about the Dutch referendum on the EU-Ukraine association agreement.

No doubt he is trying the please Putin, whose regime has funded anti-immigrant / nationalistic / anti-EU parties.

The Dutch vote makes the point that getting all the EU states to agree to an association agreement with Britain, if we were to the Leave the EU, might be difficult and is certainly not guaranteed.

As Infacts rightly say:

Farage and his fellow Eurosceptics like to say that we won’t have a problem getting a post-Brexit deal with the EU.

…

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Benjamin Sims

Why, after a year of being involved with the Lib Dems, I’ll be renewing my membership

By Benjamin Sims | Mon 11th April 2016 - 6:51 pm

I was sad to see Josh Lashkovic’s article explaining why he won’t be renewing his membership. I was one of the enthusiastic newbies he refers to; I met him in that summer of 2015, and I thought he was a great guy with interesting ideas for ways the party could move forward after its electoral wipeout.

I’m a great enthusiast for the idea of the Lib Dems as a startup, and I share his desire for the party to change. My experiences over the last year though have been completely different to his, and I’d like to explain where I think he’s wrong and see if he might reconsider.

Just because we need new methods, doesn’t mean we should throw out the old ones

I have indeed knocked on a lot of doors and I’ve delivered a lot of leaflets. But just because those methods are old doesn’t mean they’re obsolete. My first full campaign was, yes, ‘another council by-election’ and we did ‘spend evenings and weekends knocking on doors’. But we came second somewhere we’d never had a candidate before (a new entrant disrupting an established market, you might say) and we learnt a lot.

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Chris Key

The erosion of British local democracy

By Chris Key | Mon 11th April 2016 - 2:54 pm

 

Slowly but surely, local democracy is being eroded away by the Conservatives and crumbling into the sea, like parts of the British coastline. Not everyone in Britain knows this is happening. Here is how…

The decision of forcing all schools to become academies, far from improving local democracy, will see decisions taken by Academy Executives who may live hundreds of miles from your school. Take the example of the E-ACT Academy trust, which has decided to remove local governing bodies entirely.

According to the Local Government Association, there is a forecast need for over 880,000 new primary school places in the UK over the next 10 years. This will require coordination and planning to ensure new schools and places are located in areas of need, rather than the free-for-all which will now ensue. In future, when parents of children at academies want to complain, they will have to go to a mandarin in Whitehall and getting a timely response and action will be as easy as getting Ryanair to give you compensation for a delayed flight.

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Mark Pack

Looking for more women

By Mark Pack | Mon 11th April 2016 - 12:58 pm

Margaret WintringhamThe Liberal Democrat History Group faces a double bind when it comes to finding authors and topics for our articles, books and meetings cover the history of the Liberal Democrats and our predecessor parties.

The superficial explanation is that our output is bound to be dominated by men because that is how political has been. Just look at the ranks of male party leaders, for example. And look at how nearly all the biographers of our party leaders have been men. So whether we’re looking at topics or authors, you might think we’re bound to be dominated by men for understandable reasons. No problem there. Move along please.

Except it there is rather more to it than this, for when you scratch under the service it is clear things do not have to be quite this way.

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Jonan Boto

The EU Referendum – Don’t believe UKIP, believe Sir Winston (and his fellow Liberal Democrats)

By Jonan Boto | Mon 11th April 2016 - 11:22 am

Current soundbites aren’t doing this vote justice…

The arguments are well rehearsed by now. Boris’ land of milk, honey from Canada and ‘Nike tick growth’ versus Cameron’s doom, despair and economic shock. The land of Farage and UKIP freedom fighters versus job-destroying years of negotiation on separation terms (Canada’s EU trade deal: 7 years and counting).

The EU is fairly imperfect, and EU free movement makes immigration policy that much more difficult (although over 50% of migration to the UK comes from outside the EU). Cameron’s renegotiation, grand tour of Europe, and media-focused town halls are a fair attempt to address issues. But they don’t quite do it for me. (Why not travel the UK instead, to better understand people’s concerns and bolster the renegotiation?) As for UKIP, forget them: they have become the damn establishment, and their MEPs don’t even turn up for UK interests (see FT 2014 analysis).

There’s one statesman, however, I would go into battle with. So, what would Churchill have said?

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Lynne Featherstone

Baroness Lynne Featherstone writes…The State killed my nephew

By Lynne Featherstone | Mon 11th April 2016 - 10:00 am

It’s true. Nick was a haemophiliac and was infected with Hepatitis C and exposed to CJD through NHS treatment. And the Government knew the treatments were contaminated. They were warned. The NHS used blood treatment which bought blood – from American convicts. But the government carried on using contaminated blood products despite those warnings.

The result was 4670 haemophiliacs in the UK infected with HIV, Hepatitis C or both – and many exposed to CJD. In regard of the latter the consequences of that exposure are still unknown. In terms of HIV and Hepatitis C almost all haemophiliacs were infected with one or other or both. Over 2000 have died.

Nick died of Hepatitis C – or rather he died from a treatment meant to cure it. Nick was 35 years old, and left a 10 month old daughter, his partner of fourteen years. Nick’s mother (my sister), his father and his twin will never get over that loss. And that loss is made worse by the battle to get financial support and to get the government to admit its fault. It has never done so. The crucial papers were destroyed according the Department of Health.  Lord David Owen, former British Health Minister said ‘I can see why some people would be unhappy with having all the facts revealed because it will show negligence’.  No public inquiry has taken place. It must.

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Antony Hook

EURef: Two more leaflets available to order

By Antony Hook | Mon 11th April 2016 - 8:40 am

Two weeks ago we reported the availability of a Lib Dem #INtogether leaflet for the referendum campaign focussing on the cost of living.  Any member or supporter can order copies  of this leaflet.

There has been a great success with over 400,000 copies ordered in this first fortnight.

There are now two more leaflets available. These focus on jobs and security.  This is what the jobs leaflet looks like (click to enlarge)

jobs leaflet

Any member or supporters can order copies of these leaflets at cost price of £40 per 1000 (including delivery). This is an effective …

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Caron Lindsay

LibLink: Alex Cole-Hamilton: Criticism of SNP policies is vital

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 10th April 2016 - 8:00 pm

Alex Cole-Hamilton Edinburgh WesternA few days ago, Edinburgh Western’s SNP candidate took to the Evening News to take a swipe at the Liberal Democrats, accusing us of being negative before lobbing a few insults our way.

Alex Cole-Hamilton, who hopes to regain the seat for the Liberal Democrats, wrote his own article for the News. He writes:

Toni, I’m sorry you’ve been offended. But I don’t think that drawing attention to the failings of your government or your local representatives should be viewed as underhand, I’d view it as the democratic duty of a healthy opposition.

When the person you asked us to vote for last May turns up for fewer than half of the votes in the House of Commons since September then I think that as your nearest challenger, I should voice the view of the significant majority of those in our constituency who feel that’s just not good enough.

When your ministers preside over a year on year decline in the global rankings of our education system, the shambolic and unwanted centralisation of public services or a waiting times crisis in our health service, then someone should point out that we deserve much better.

Now, I understand it’s hard for you. The constitution of the SNP prohibits you from openly criticising your party or its policies. But I’m not in your party so I can provide a counterpoint to the nationalist dogma that is currently choking Scottish Politics.

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Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #454

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 10th April 2016 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 454th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere … Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (3-9 April, 2016), together with a hand-picked quintet, 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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Caron Lindsay

Liberal Youth calls for reserved places on party committees

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 10th April 2016 - 6:19 pm

Liberal Youth (soon to be the Young Liberals) has called for places to be reserved on party committees for its members, citing the success of this approach in Scotland and Wales.

In an open letter to the Federal Executive, published on the Libertine blog, LY co-chair Charlie Kingsbury said:

…it feels obvious now that Liberal Youth, now being the largest voting bloc in the party, to be intimately involved in the decision-making process of the wider party.

This is already the case in both Scotland and Wales, where appropriate executive officers of the relevant state organisations of Liberal Youth (Ieuenctid Rhyddfrydol Cymru and Liberal Youth Scotland) sit on their Conference, Campaigns, Policy, and Executive Committees. In England too, LY England members sit on the English Council and Executive. It strikes us as peculiar that the same settlement is not imitated federally: if the Welsh, Scottish and English Liberal Democrats are able to trust their respective youth wings, it is surprising that the Federal Party does not do the same.

Through including Liberal Youth in the party committees of the federal party (as it already does for the FPC), it sends a clear message that Liberal Youth and the wider party of the Liberal Democrats are working together for the purposes of promoting a more liberal United Kingdom, and not in opposition to each other. This is especially important after we highlighted a number of concerns regarding ageism in the party that do not seem to be reflected in Wales in particular, where Liberal Youth membership of their main committees is automatic.

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Caron Lindsay

Tim Farron on tax: “We must not miss this opportunity to change the system”

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 10th April 2016 - 5:03 pm

Tim Farron by Paul WalterTim Farron has written a note about tax on his Facebook page. As party leaders publish their tax returns, (including Willie Rennie, that’s 5 minutes of your life you won’t get back if you choose to read this unremarkable document), he says that it’s actually the system you need to change. He’ll publish his in the next few days, but that is not really the point. Here are his comments in full:

The politics of envy helps no-one, but trust in politics does.

I have no desire to poke around in the Prime Minister’s private wealth, and definitely have no desire to force him to relive the pain of losing his father, having to confront that time all over again through the pages of national newspapers.

It is absolutely essential that British people have full confidence in our leaders, and that when decisions are made and Budgets are written there is not even a slightest hint of a conflict of interest or personal gain. But we are now in a position where people no longer have complete faith in this Government’s decisions.

Trust in politics and our ability to get things done is taking another hammering. It’s an poor indictment of our political system that the demand is now so great for the public to see politicians’ tax affairs. Are we now in a world where there is an assumption that a politician is doing wrong, or is playing the system?

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Antony Hook

UKIP’s ongoing collapse – ducking a by-election in Farage’s “top target”

By Antony Hook | Sun 10th April 2016 - 2:56 pm

UKIP are hardly in the news now except where plots, rival campaigns and divisions are concerned. They seem to have collapsed from the party that as promising to win 100 seats at the last General Election and got just 1.

An example of this is in South Thanet, which was meant to be their top target at the General Election, with party leader Nigel Farage MEP as candidate. They no longer appear to be taking the seat seriously.  In your top target area you would expect to contest every election vigorously throughout the Parliament, even Town Council by-elections. Some might say especially Town Council by-elections.

5th May sees a by-election in the constituency’s medieval market town, Sandwich. There are only Lib Dem, Conservative and Labour candidates; no UKIP. Given that the area has no regular local elections on 5 May it should not have been hard to find one candidate.

In another part of South Thanet, two UKIP councillors on sick leave from Thanet Council have been charged with shoplifting. UKIP took control of Thanet Council promising to bring about a re-opening of Manston airport. You will not be surprised to hear it remains closed.

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The Voice

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

By The Voice | Sun 10th April 2016 - 1:33 pm

7 bestMany thanks to the 10,000  visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…

It’s time for the Lib Dems to set some external goals, strategy and tactics (70 comments) by Antony Hook

Is it Game Over for David Cameron? (29 comments) by Caron Lindsay

Laws on Osborne v Duncan Smith (24 comments) by Joe Otten

Book Review: Charles Kennedy: A tragic flaw by Greg Hurst (8 comments) by Paul Walter

Ethnic minority pupils outclass white British pupils (41 comments) by Mary Reid

What Cameron and Osborne said bout Vince Cable’s proposals on corporate transparency (26 comments) by Nick Thornsby

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Paul Walter

Could the Republican party save the world from Trump, but split apart?

By Paul Walter | Sun 10th April 2016 - 11:55 am

Things have changed since my last post on this. Last time, I thought it was relatively certain that Trump would be the Republican US Presidential nominee. I am not so sure now. First, we had Mitt Romney’s extraordinary, unprecedented excoriation of Trump. Then we had that unheard of event: the Trump gaffe machine gun finally fired a round which rebounded on him – I refer to his rapidly recounted suggestion that women who have abortions should be punished (which, lest we forget, was followed by a casual grunt to confirm that he thought it inconceivable that the men involved should even be considered for equal treatment).

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Caron Lindsay

WATCH: Alex Cole-Hamilton on tax, education, glaciers and the SNP’s “magic tractor”

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 10th April 2016 - 10:46 am

This week, Edinburgh Western candidate Alex Cole-Hamilton took part in a debate on Scotland 2016 on tax.

Here are his highlights. I think my favourite was the “magic tractor.”

Scotland 2016 Tax Debate

Last night Alex Cole-Hamilton took part in the Scotland 2016 Tax Debate. If you missed it – catch the highlights below, including John Swinney's magic money tractor and our plan for education:

Posted by Scottish Liberal Democrats on Wednesday, 6 April 2016

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NewsHound

Kirsty Williams: We go into this election as the smallest opposition party which has delivered more than anyone else

By NewsHound | Sun 10th April 2016 - 9:54 am

Kirsty Williams on Radio WalesKirsty Williams came in for some pretty aggressive questioning from BBC Radio Wales’ Jason Mohammad the other day. He was not interested in giving her any opportunity to explain what she stood for. All he wanted to do was to talk about how badly the Liberal Democrats were doing in all sorts of elections.

She handled it all very coolly, talking about how Brecon and Radnorshire was now lumbered with a Tory MP who was perfectly happy to vote for cuts to tax credits and disability benefits. She talked about what the Liberal Democrats has achieved in the Assembly despite being the smallest opposition group and how we were winning council by-elections again.

You can watch the whole thing here:

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Caron Lindsay

Should politicians publish their tax returns?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 10th April 2016 - 8:33 am

Here’s Tim Farron telling Sky News on Friday that he is going to release his tax return, regardless of whether anyone else does. He said he made his decision because he thought that people had “a right to have their confidence in their leaders enhanced and not further diminished.”

Tim Farron: “I’m Going To Publish My Tax Return”“It’s up to him. I’m going to.” Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron on whether David Cameron should publish his tax return.

Posted by Sky News on Friday, 8 April 2016

And so, David Cameron has now published his tax return. It doesn’t really tell us anything that we didn’t know already. We discover that he’s a rich man. We discover that he and his wife get more in rent for their Notting Hill home every year than some of our homes are worth. They are getting in more than £7,500 per month.

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The Voice

Sadiq and Zac agree for once: Caroline Pidgeon is “great” and “impressive”

By The Voice | Sat 9th April 2016 - 1:25 pm

We know that Caroline Pidgeon is making a very positive impact on London’s mayoral race. In virtually very debate, she is judged to be the winner, with even arch-Tory Iain Dale, now of the LBC parish, saying that the two women were eclipsing the men in the debate.

Caroline was featured in the Standard and the first paragraph of that article had praise from her two biggest rivals. They don’t often agree, but they are clearly both bowled over by her talents.

If the mayoral election was decided on a candidate’s grasp of policy, there’s a good chance Caroline Pidgeon would win it. The Lib-Dem hopeful — who has eight years on the London Assembly under her belt — has impressed even her better-known rivals with her inside knowledge of the City Hall empire.

Zac Goldsmith tells me “she’s great”, before glancing at his media adviser and asking, “Am I allowed to say that?” Sadiq Khan agrees that her handle on London policy is impressive.

Those two get more like Stadtler and Waldorf from the Muppets every day and this is about the only thing they agree on. Why would Londoners want either of them when they could have Caroline?

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NewsHound

LibLink: Nick Clegg: Hypocritical Brexiteers are as much an elite as those they rage against

By NewsHound | Sat 9th April 2016 - 11:55 am

I reckon that Nick Clegg’s columns will be more often than not about the EU for the next few months.

This week, he’s looking into the records of those “men of the people” Brexiteers such as Boris, Farage, Zac Goldsmith and Nigel Lawson:

Well, there’s Lord Lawson, the 83-year-old former chairman of Vote Leave who was Chancellor of the Exchequer under Margaret Thatcher. He now lives for much of the year in the South of France, nurturing his climate-change scepticism and loathing of the EU from the sunny climes of the Gascon countryside.

Then there’s Nigel Farage, always ready to claim the everyman mantle over a pint of ale in a traditional English pub. Nigel had a long career as a City trader before he became an MEP 17 years ago, and has failed now on seven occasions to become an MP — hardly evidence of someone seeking to shun the Westminster establishment.

How about Arron Banks, the millionaire Conservative donor who defected to Ukip and co-founded the Leave.EU campaign? The insurance magnate was named in the Panama Papers this week as the shareholder of a company based in the British Virgin Islands.

There’s Zac Goldsmith, the Eurosceptic Tory mayoral candidate, who parades himself as a scourge of the Westminster establishment. He is the son of a billionaire whose whole mayoral campaign appears to be based on the claim that his closeness to the powerful in Westminster will help Londoners.

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Caron Lindsay

Willie Rennie stands up for Scottish farmers let down by the SNP’s CAP payments failure

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 9th April 2016 - 10:25 am

Ok, let’s get this out of the way first. We know that Willie has had his issues with farm animals recently.  I know it’s kind of hard to stop laughing, but try for a second, because this is important.

Before Willie had even set foot in that city farm yesterday, he’d been standing up for farmers across Scotland. As we told you earlier this week, the SNP has totally failed on delivering payments to farmers on time. This has caused our farmers tremendous difficulty. To add insult to injury, apparently whacking rates of interest will be charged on the emergency loans farmers were given by the Scottish Government. Tavish Scott highlighted this the other day. Willie made it clear in yesterday’s Press and Journal that the SNP Government should be compensating farmers for its failures:

Speaking on his visit to Fife, which came after the Press and Journal revealed farmers could be charged extortionate interest rates on state loans they have only received because of the CAP payment bungle, Mr Rennie said: “Farmers should not be footing the bill for SNP incompetence.

“Liberal Democrats will guarantee to increase the resources deployed in advance of the future rounds of CAP payments to ensure there is no repeat of the shambles we have seen this year.

“We will also establish an immediate restitution scheme to compensate farmers who incurred extra banking costs because of the delay in their CAP payment.

“That is the right, fair thing to do.”

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ALDC

ALDC’s by-election report 7 April 2016

By ALDC | Sat 9th April 2016 - 8:55 am

ALDC Master Logo (for screen)Yesterday saw three principal council by-elections being held, one each in England, Scotland and Wales.

In Perth & Kinross (UA), the Conservatives made a gain in Almond & Earn ward from an Independent. The Tories received 48.1% of the first preference votes as they eventually won the seat after the third round of voting. Liberal Democrat candidate George Hayton polled 4.2% of the first preferences in finishing in fourth place.

However, the Conservatives did continue their recent run of by-election losses, losing a seat in Pocklington Provincial ward in the East Riding of Yorkshire (UA) to an Independent. The Independent candidate polled 38% to win the seat with a 52 vote majority. No Liberal Democrat candidate was fielded.

Elsewhere, Labour made a comfortable hold in Ynysddu ward in Caerphilly (UA), winning with 58.9% of the vote. Matthew Kidner received 4.2% of the vote for the Lib Dems, with the party not having stood in the ward in the 2012 or 2008 elections.

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Caron Lindsay

Friday fun: The story of Willie Rennie and the friendly pigs

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 8th April 2016 - 7:12 pm

An awful lot of planning goes into those photo-ops you see every night on the telly during an election campaign. The party leaders have a specific message they want to get out.

Today, Willie Rennie was at Gorgie City Farm in Edinburgh to talk about the importance of vocational training. He’s done a lot with animals this campaign. Remember those ultra cute therapets? He also got the “seal” of approval at Deep Sea World. What could possibly go wrong?

Today’s visit started so well:

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