Here is last night’s Welsh Liberal Democrats’ election broadcast:
The world of puppet politicians
We've all heard the hot air of puppet politicians… but who will get the basics right and create a Wales that works for you?
Posted by Welsh Liberal Democrats on Thursday, 7 April 2016
Today is International Romani Day, a day to celebrate the culture and raise awareness of one of the most misunderstood groups within Europe. Romani people have faced severe persecution over the last century but are tragically often forgotten and that is why this day is important.
Tragically, Romani people are still facing persecution and are being denied equal human rights within Europe.
Our continent is buckling under the strain of the greatest humanitarian crisis it has faced since the last World War, tensions are running high in areas struggling to cope with an influx of men, women and children who have had to flee their homes to escape the destruction and tyranny of terrorist groups and dictators. Sadly, as these people reach the borders of states unable or unwilling to welcome the number of people who have arrived needing protection, human rights are often being forgotten and protection and fair treatment is not being given.
A few years ago, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives had to resign effectively because he’d taken a few taxi journeys that he shouldn’t on parliamentary expenses. This was the result of the much stronger freedom of information rules in Scotland and was part of our own expenses scandal in 2005.
If those are the standards which merit resignation, David Cameron should perhaps have been a little more careful over the statements he made earlier in the week over his personal financial dealings. He might have told us that he didn’t have any shares now, but holding back the information that he had held shares in his father’s offshore trust for 13 years before selling them just before he became Prime Minister demonstrates a lack of candour. Why couldn’t he just have been up front about it at the beginning of the week? We should expect more from our political leaders.
Tim Farron agrees, telling the Mirror:
The Prime Minister has for days denied that he had offshore funds but has been dragged to the truth.
For ordinary taxpayers to have faith in the system they have to be able to have faith in their leaders. They deserve better than half truths and qualified statements.
It might be an idea for the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to review the matter to make sure that Cameron always kept to the rules on registering these shares. At first glance, it looks as though he did. The rules for registering shareholdings are as follows:
With just under three months to go the EU referendum, the low turnout and overwhelming majority against the Ukraine-EU Association Treaty in a Dutch referendum is not a good omen. It is a good moment to take stock. The campaign is about to start, with the official designation of the Remain and Leave campaigns due soon. What lessons can the UK learn from the Dutch referendum experience?
The good news first: the UK referendum really matters, whereas the Dutch one did not. The Ukraine-EU Association Treaty is important geopolitically but for the average Dutch voter, ratification will not change their daily lives. It allowed them a protest vote seemingly without consequence. Those that could bother to vote – less than a third of voters, with many supporters staying at home in the hope that the required 30% threshold would be missed – predictably took that opportunity with both hands.
Here, the EU referendum will have a very real impact on people’s daily lives. That should focus minds but there is a risk: a referendum is rarely about the subject on the ballot paper. Only when the question is crystal clear and on a topic of relevance to the voters will the campaign focus on that. The Scottish referendum campaign was a good example of where that worked well. Everybody could relate to the question at hand and because it was such a momentous decision, people were extremely engaged in the debate.
Nominations have just closed for the elections on 5th May. Every part of the UK has at least one election: parliamentary, assembly, mayoral, police commissioner and local.
Can I start by saying a big thank you to everyone who is a Liberal Democrat candidate this year, at every level. Thanks to you tens of millions of people with have an opportunity to vote Liberal Democrat and in many places up and down the country the chance of getting a Lib Dem elected.
We mustn’t forget the teams behind the candidates: volunteer activists, paid organisers, agents, deliverers and ‘foot soldiers’. I know how hard people are working and will be working until 10pm on the 5th May and it is really appreciated.
Given this week’s coverage of the so-called Panama Papers — the cache of 11.5m confidential files from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca — this week, it was interesting to come across this account in David Laws’s book, Coalition, from a meeting in 2013:
An interesting nugget from David Laws’s book in the light of the #panamapapers pic.twitter.com/D8WtrKiz74
— Nick Thornsby (@NickThornsby) April 6, 2016
Time and time again people have questioned Shakespeare’s ethics, religion, sexuality and politics. Nothing can really be deduced about the man from his works. It is considered a dangerous trap when we start to assume that the words of Shylock or Romeo are conduits for Shakespeare’s personal feelings. However, he writes powerful arguments that chime with Liberal ideology. Do I have bias and wish for Shakespeare to be a liberal? Or is it my love for Shakespeare both as a theatre-goer and as an actor that turned me to liberal politics at a young age? I believe so.
“I believe that the way things are is not the way things have to be”. The first line of Nick Clegg’s opening statement in ITV’s ‘First Ever TV Election Debate’ was my political awakening. It unlocked my passion for politics and it made me not only want to change the world, but it made me believe the world could be changed. I followed that passion pretty religiously- I signed up to the Liberal Democrats, volunteered everywhere from my local party in Hertfordshire to Edinburgh for the Scottish Referendum. I even ended up working for Nick in Westminster, first as an intern and then as a Communications Assistant between 2014 and the crushing blow that was Election Day 2015.
The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society. For our party, a strong education system, freely available to all, is the key to building the society we strive towards.
This year, David Cameron’s government has announced an extensive programme of reform to the British school system, including the much publicised forced conversion of all schools to academy status, the resulting abolition of the Local Education Authorities, the removal of Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), the end of parent governors and the extension of the school day.
Currently any opposition to the education reforms are being attacked by Nicky Morgan’s Department for Education as “playing politics with our children’s future”. This comes despite these sweeping reforms having been brought forward with almost no consultation with teachers or with parents. The scale of these reforms were not included within the 2015 Conservative General Election manifesto and therefore there is no clear mandate.
Liberal Democrats are committed to strengthening the democratic process and ensuring that there is a just and representative system of government. The Cameron government appears to be showing a total disregard for our democratic processes. This alone gives our liberal party ample reason to oppose these reforms until they have been subject to proper consultation and discussion.
However, reviewing the basis and impact of the proposals raises further significant concerns.
Mike Smithson had no doubt about the winner of last night’s ITV London/LBC mayoral debate.
Tonight' ITV London Mayoral debate. My verdict pic.twitter.com/ORTSkucDPo
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) April 5, 2016
And he wasn’t alone. Caroline’s strong performance attracted praise from unexpected quarters.
The two women in the London debate are totally eclipsing the three men. #londondebate. And not for the first time. pic.twitter.com/hxBg3yCKff
— Iain Dale (@IainDale) April 5, 2016
You can watch the whole thing here:
Wow, what a month March was for Liberal Democrat drug policy. First, the Lib Dem-commissioned independent panel report on cannabis regulation was published, advocating a framework for a fully legal regulated market for cannabis. Secondly, Norman Lamb proposed a motion to adopt the framework of the panel report as official party policy, which was subsequently voted in near-unanimously at conference. Finally, Norman presented a 10 Minute Rule Bill to the Commons, presenting our newly adopted policy to the rest of the House with an impassioned speech. The motion was voted through without contest and will now receive its second hearing later this month, on April 22nd. Progress indeed, although sadly it is deeply unlikely that the Bill will get past its second hearing.
However, before we congratulate ourselves too much having the most progressive drug policy of any UK party, we must ask ourselves what next? Where do we go from here? To know this, we must look at our existing policies, at what declarations we may have forgotten, and what new evidence can be brought to bear in shaping a truly liberal, evidence-based drug policy.
Ewan Hoyle, a long-time activist for drug policy reform within our party, alluded to this at conference, where he reminded the audience of the wider aims of our drug policy. In particular, he pointed out that much of the harm associated with drug use is often related to harder drugs, and it is these harms that it is essential we mitigate with intelligent policy interventions.
Liberal Democrat London Mayoral candidate Caroline Pidgeon will be answering questions on Twitter this afternoon:
I'll be @TwitterUK later today answering questions. Tweet with #AskCaroline and I'll be responding this afternoon https://t.co/72sEXfkB3a
— Caroline Pidgeon (@CarolinePidgeon) April 6, 2016
This comes the day after her manifesto launch and a successful mayoral debate last night where her performance attracted widespread praise.
Yesterday, she launched her manifesto, which you can read here.
.@CarolinePidgeon launching positive @LondonLibDems manifesto www.@londonlibdems.org.uk pic.twitter.com/o0vZB0E46D
— Rob Blackie (@robblackie) April 5, 2016
You really could not make it up. Farmers have been struggling for months because of delays in getting their CAP payments to them. For months the failures of an £178 million IT system have stopped farmers being paid, causing them serious cash flow issues.
The SNP Government, after too long, issued them with emergency cash advances.
If those advances turn out to be more than the payment they were due, it has now emerged that farmers will have just 7 days to repay the difference or be charged a whopping rate of interest.
Given that they are in the mess …
Now that the immediate fuss over the recent Budget has died down a little it is perhaps time for some more considered reflection on the nature of any criticism on the failure of the government, and George Osborne in particular, to make anywhere near the progress promised on the question of cutting the budget deficit. Maybe we can get it right for the next time it hits the headlines. The deficit problem is not going to be solved any time soon.
Naturally, the duty of an opposition is to constructively oppose, and so if the government’s deficit does not fall and total debt does rise, when the Government has a clear policy for just the opposite, then the Lib Dems, together with the other left of centre opposition parties, need to point out the failure of that policy. However, we need to be careful. That argument can be easily turned around. So we are in favour of even higher taxes and even more drastic cuts in public spending, are we? And when we say we are not, how does that chime with the public? Will they accept we are really being constructive? Aren’t they just going to think we want it both ways?
Airbus, which employs 15,000 people and the UK and supports another 100,000 UK jobs through its supply chain is backing Remain, reports the Guardian. The same article reports a survey that found 70% insurance professionals believe that leaving the EU would harm their industry.
Stanley Johnson (father of Boris) says that staying in important for the environment. He was supported by former Tory Cabinet Minister John Gummer who said:
The people who believe in Brexit do not accept a world in which you no longer have the sort of national power that we had in 1945 or 1900. You now
…
I’d heard the word “Kafkaesque” being bandied around for years, but only had a vague idea what it meant.
So, upon recently renewing my local library card, I was emboldened to take out their copy of “The Trial” to try to find out what “Kafkaesque” really means – or should mean. (Often words, which are misused, metamorphisise officially to their misused meaning. “Literally” is now accepted as often meaning “used for emphasis while not being literally true”.)
A friend commented: “Ahah! Starting with the light reads, eh?”
In fact, I was greatly impressed by the attractive narrative style of Franz Kafka. There are two horrendously violent incidents in the book. Apart from that, the story proceeds in a very charming and engaging way. The narrator and the subject seem to be intertwined.
I had a chance to read this recently updated book while on holiday in West Africa. It is a remarkably fine volume. Painstakingly researched and impeccably sourced, it offers a skillfully balanced portrait of a remarkable and inspiring man. As the title suggests, the author does not hold back on the human frailties of its subject but these are, nevertheless, presented as part of a rounded, fair and endearing commentary. I feel this book helps us to inch forward a little further in understanding the rather enigmatic Charles Kennedy, while deconstructing a few myths along the way.
I’ll pick out a few parts of the book which particularly caught my attention:
I wrote here recently on the claim by Iain Duncan Smith that he had been unhappy with the extent of cuts that George Osborne was demanding from the welfare budget.
Some light has been thrown on this by David Laws’ book Coalition, written before IDS’s resignation but published since.
Largely it seems to confirm Duncan Smith’s position. Not that he is a welfare dove by any means – for example when a complete welfare freeze for 2012 was proposed, while inflation was running at 5 per cent (p102)
Lib Dem Voice reported before on the trial at Southwark Crown Court of Peter Skinner (Labour MEP 1994-2014). He has been found guilty by the jury of around £480,000 of fraud.
The essence of the fraud was misusing funds assigned to him as am MEP for the employment of staff to assist him in his duties as an MEP. There was clear evidence before the jury that a large part of these funds were diverted for personal expenditure or paid to people who were his family members (and cannot be employed) or did not work for him. It appears that the …
There are some interesting nuggets of information in CentreForum’s Annual Report on Education which was published today. Amongst other things, it identifies a north/south divide in attainment at secondary school and notes that there is still a significant gap between the achievements of disadvantaged pupils and their peers.
I am particularly pleased to see how well London pupils are doing. It wasn’t that long ago that London secondary schools were seen as failures. The London Challenge was an ambitious programme set up in 2003 to combat this and as a result some inner London local authorities went from being amongst the worst performing to the best performing nationally.
But the finding that has been picked up by the media relates to the performance of white British children. It seems that when they start school these children are ahead of their fellow pupils, but by the time they reach 16 they are well below average compared with other ethnic groups.
Members attend regional conference to debate policy, receive training, question the decision makers in the party, and, of course, to socialise with old friends over a cup of tea or an excellent lunch.
On Saturday, following the opening of North West Liberal Democrats Conference by the Deputy Leader of Stockport Council, we heard an upbeat presentation from Sir Vince Cable about the work the Liberal Democrats did in Government, and where we go from here. This was followed by a presentation by former North West MEP Chris Davies on the progress of the #intogether campaign to keep Britain in the EU. …
I wrote yesterday that Tim Farron might be the longest serving party leader by the Autumn. He is certain to lead us into General Election 2020. Cameron and Corbyn have looser grips on their parties.
Liberal Democrats should use this internal stability to answer fundamental external questions.
It seems to me that chiefly among these are:
…
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 453rd 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 (27 March – 2 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:
There are few people who understand how the world works better than our Paddy. He really gets how global power structures are changing and how vital it is that countries with liberal values work together, so it’s no surprise that he really wants us to vote to stay in the EU for our own and for international good.
I’m not quite sure why he’s chosen a Sunday afternoon in the Easter holidays to wade into the fray afresh with a cheeky tweet, but you can’t really argue with him on this.
Britain's friends for BRIN: Obama & all leaders of NATO, Commonwealth, and EU plus China etc.etc. "Friends" supporting BREXIT? er… Putin?
— Paddy Ashdown (@paddyashdown) April 3, 2016
The five main Scottish Party leaders participated in a hustings organised by Stonewall Scotland, the Scottish Transgender Alliance, the Equality Network and LGBTI Youth Scotland. Those four organisations do ground-breaking work to support LGBTI people. Their role in providing positive and practical help can’t be under-estimated and they are helping to change the culture of the country.
If you are a young person struggling to come to terms with your sexuality or gender identity today, you can see that five party leaders, including the woman who runs the Scottish Government talk about how important it is that in school, at work, in society, you are free to live your life without discrimination. They agree that health services need to improve so that they meet your needs. Compare and contrast to even 20 years ago, when Section 28 (or 2A as it was in Scotland) was in force. It’s such a powerful signal of acceptance for all leaders to participate in something like this. It will help those young people walk taller, with more confidence.
Many thanks to the 10,000 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…
Exciting new venue for Spring Conference (28 comments) by The Voice
LibLink: Nick Clegg: The five big fat lies being perpetuated by Brexit’s Project Fib (25 comments) by Newshound
Lib Dems and the Middle East: Are we prepared to address the obvious (40 comments) by Jonathan Coulter
Some questions for the next Head of Campaigns (26 comments) by Paul Holmes
John Pugh MP writes…Our vision for education (19 comments) by John Pugh MP
The #libdemfightback: things to look for on May 5th (7 comments) by John B Grout
Papers score Willie Rennie as debate winner (10 comments) by Caron Lindsay
The chairman of the Conservative 1922 backbench committee and Tory councillors are reported to be angry with the government’s plan to force 17,000 schools in England to become academies by 2020.
Melinda Tilley, cabinet member for education in Oxfordshire said:
Tim Farron is undoubtedly in a more secure position as leader of the Liberal Democrats than Cameron or Corbyn are as leaders of their parties.
Cameron
If Britain vote to leave Europe on 23 June, the public think Cameron should resign as Prime Minister by a margin of 48:41.
I agree with that. By analogy, no self-respecting Chief Executive could remain in post if his shareholders rejected his advice on such a big issue.
Whichever way the referendum goes, it takes 50 Tory MPs to trigger a leadership ballot. 150 have come out against the PM’s position of the EU. It seems very likely that the …
Welsh Liberal Democrat leader Kirsty Williams has slated the Conservative Government at Westminster and the Labour Government in Wales for its failures over the steel industry. She says it’s time to put British industry first.
She said that the Conservative Government had allowed the UK steel industry to “shrivel on its watch”, in response to the announcement that councils must now consider UK providers when when carrying out procurement for steel. She also blasted the Labour Government for doing nothing to ensure Welsh steel was used on infrastructure projects.
Once again the UK Government is shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. It’s no good asking councils to use UK steel now after letting the industry shrivel on their watch.
Of course councils and the UK Government should always be considering UK steel, but this is just a basic requirement to support our industry. It’s time this Tory Government put British industry first, rather than just kowtowing to the Chinese Government.
Labour’s record is no better. The Labour Government in Wales has completely failed to support Welsh steel. Time and time again Welsh Liberal Democrats have called for an audit of Welsh procurement, yet the Labour Government has done nothing. We called on Labour to publish new guidance when investing in steel, again nothing has happened. For 18 months we’ve called for reduced business rates on heavy machinery, again nothing. People are absolutely fed up of governments that offer warm words, but seem incompetent to realise how serious this crisis is.
In today’s Sunday Herald, Willie Rennie talks to political editor Tom Gordon about the Scottish Liberal Democrat campaign. He sets out the key Liberal Democrat themes:
I want to get Scotland back up there, with an ambitious programme for investing in education with a penny on income tax.
Protecting our civil liberties, getting our police force to be the best again so that it’s got the confidence of the public but also police officers themselves.
On the environment, making sure we have a very strong programme on fracking and not cutting Air Passenger Duty . And on the health service, making sure mental health services get the support they need and recruiting more GPs. You couldn’t be more positive than that.
As Holyrood gains new tax powers, Lib Dem plans to increase income tax by a penny to invest in education is the most radical in a set of fairly modest measures put forward by all the parties. The SNP have always talked a good fight, but when they are actually given significant power, it’s like they’ve been given a Ferrari that they won’t take out of second gear. Willie talked about the SNP’s timidity:
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Observations of an Expat: West Bank Settler Sanctions (Tom Arms)
Recollections of 9/11 (George Cunningham)
Why we need a Trade NATO (Dominic Sokalski)
‘I Fear a Target on My Back’ — A Liberal Democrat’s fight for Hong Kong’s freedom (Alan Dai)
Making the most of the Government’s belated action on illegal Israeli settlements (Jonathan Brown)
Jonathan Brown 
George Thomas 
David Le Grice 
expats Jonathan Brown 
The Grimond Society and economic democracy
A stone out of place and time
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