Mary Reid

Why do we hate politics?

By Mary Reid | Sat 20th February 2016 - 12:33 pm

Well, that headline clearly does not refer to you, dear reader. But it does apply to a large number of citizens of the UK, and, sadly, many young people.

I have been keeping an eye – in an encouraging way – on Shout Out UK, which aims to get more young people interested in politics and political activism, by challenging them with news and ideas from their peers. It is strictly non-partisan. Shout Out offers a platform to young writers and filmmakers, as well as providing educational materials that can be used in schools.

If you work with young people you might want to share their latest video.

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Paul Walter

++BREAKING NEWS: EU referendum to be held on June 23rd

By Paul Walter | Sat 20th February 2016 - 12:32 pm

From the Guardian:

Cameron confirms – as expected – that the referendum will take place on June 23.

The prime minister said that the question will be about whether the UK “will be safer stronger and better off working in a reformed Europe or out on our own.”

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Stuart Bonar

Leaving Europe so we can adopt Aussie-style immigration rules won’t solve a thing

By Stuart Bonar | Sat 20th February 2016 - 10:18 am

 

Nigel Farage told the media last year, “I am saying that if we have an Australian-style points system, immigration would not be a problem.” He made the point again earlier this month, speaking to Sky News.

The fact that inside the European Union we can’t adopt a more restrictive Australian-style points immigration system is for many the single biggest reason there is to leave the EU. Rid ourselves of the shackles of Brussels, crack down, and, as Farage himself said, “immigration would not be a problem.”

It’s a point summed up by their migration spokesman, Stephen Woolfe MEP: “To restore Britain’s borders, we need to leave the EU & implement a fair & ethical Australian style points based system.”

Well, I’m on holiday in Australia this week, and I’ve been reading the papers. And one thing I can definitely say is that an Australian-style points system is no silver bullet when it comes to immigration.

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Caron Lindsay

Farron: History shows that Britain is better when it is united with Europe.

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 19th February 2016 - 11:36 pm

So, just minutes before the 10 o’clock news, it was announced that A Deal Had Been Struck. Fancy that.

It had been a bit like the day the BBC camped outside the maternity hospital when William and Kate had their first child – except the outcome was not quite as joyful.

In news which will surprise precisely nobody, I can reveal that I will be voting to remain in Europe – despite Cameron’s deal, rather than because of it. I suppose we should just be grateful he didn’t sell our hard-won employment rights down the river in the process of reaching this rather mean-spirited agreement.

So, I’ve not changed my vote, the Outers are not satisfied with the deal, as if that were ever possible, so was there a point?

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Newspuppy

Lib Dems have best by-election record this year

By Newspuppy | Fri 19th February 2016 - 8:25 pm

I know it’s only February, but look at these tweets from Britain Elects:

And the news gets better:

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NewsHound

Reaction to the General Election Review

By NewsHound | Fri 19th February 2016 - 7:40 pm

Welcome to our whistle-stop tour of the coverage of our General Election Review. If you’ve missed our earlier pieces, you can read the document here.

The Mirror has a poll at the end of their piece. 28% of respondents say they’d vote for us in the future. I’ll take that.

The BBC quotes Tim Farron’s response:

The review – carried out by members of the party’s Campaigns and Communications Committee – made a string of recommendations to help the party fare better in any future coalition.

These include that Lib Dems should make it clear they will only automatically vote for legislation covered by the coalition agreement, and that the “wider party” should be represented in the negotiations.

Tim Farron, who replaced Mr Clegg as leader, said: “Blame and criticism can provide short term satisfaction, but do nothing for a future vision.

“This report is about setting a way forward, recognising the mistakes we made, and learning from them.”

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Caron Lindsay

Six key points of the General Election Review

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 19th February 2016 - 6:35 pm

The Liberal Democrats’ Campaigns and Communications Committee has published its Review of the 2015 General Election today. Have they correctly analysed what went wrong? The review team conducted extensive interviews with key players and based its conclusions on feedback from 7500 party members. The report doesn’t pull any punches. Many activists will identify with its criticisms and will be heartened by its recommendations. In fact, from what I can see from social media, even some of the harshest critics of the last few years are finding this review to be satisfactory.

And, in the media, Patrick Wintour had this to say:

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ALDC

ALDC’s by-election report 18 February 2016

By ALDC | Fri 19th February 2016 - 2:36 pm

ALDC Master Logo (for screen)There were two holds, one gain and one loss for Liberal Democrats in yesterday’s round of principal council by-elections. In Cambridgeshire (CC), the party made a gain from the Conservatives in Sutton division on the back of an impressive 18.5% swing from the Tories. Lorna Dupré polled 52.5%, a vote share increase of 19.7% from 2013, to take victory with a 412 vote majority.

Liberal Democrat candidates were also successful in contests in Flintshire (UA) and Lichfield (DC), as candidates Sara Parker and Paul Ray held seats for the party with 45.2% and 40% of the vote respectively.

There was less good news for the party in Chiltern (DC), as the Conservatives made a gain from us in Amersham Town ward. The Tories polled 50.2%, with Lib Dem candidate Richard Williams falling 135 votes short in second place.

Elsewhere, the Conservatives held a seat in Newmarket and Red Lodge division in Suffolk (CC), with Lib Dem Tim Huggan polling 4.8% in fourth place. The Tories also held seats in Toton & Chilwell Meadows and Greasley wards, whilst Roy Heal and Keith Longden polled 20.7% and 11.8% respectively for the Liberal Democrats. Also, Labour comfortably held one of their seats in Higher Blackley ward in Manchester (MB) with 65.3%. Lib Dem Peter Mathews polled 4.8% in fourth place, a vote share increase of 2.2% from last May.

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Peter Martin

Fixing the Budget. Are we looking at the problem the right way?


By Peter Martin | Fri 19th February 2016 - 12:12 pm

Whenever we read articles on reducing the government’s budget deficit the underlying assumption is invariably that it needs to spend less and obtain more taxation revenue. This approach is known as economic austerity. We all know from our personal experience that if we have a debt problem we have to spend less and/or earn more to get out of trouble. So that must work. Or must it? All politicians in all parties need to get this one right if nothing else. Any government’s spending and taxation policy impacts just about everything else in its ‘to do’ list.


We saw in the last Parliament that the Coalition ‘reluctantly’ raised VAT to 20% to increase taxation revenues. All spending plans were subject to extreme scrutiny. Various bodies in the Treasury, or the Office of Budget Responsibility had previously been at work and had produced figures to show the extent to which the deficit would shrink over the course of several years. Usually just before the next election, hey presto! We’d have that surplus we were always promised.



It never does work. After a couple of years we see articles and more articles in the press saying that the Chancellor has been ‘blown off course’ by this or that event, and the story is usually that whereas government spending has been kept to plan the taxation receipts have been disappointing and consequently the promised date of a budget surplus is further away than was first predicted. There are lots of articles along these lines for anyone who cares to search them out online. There are never any at all, as far as I know, saying that the situation has turned around better than expected.

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James Gurling

Report into the 2015 General Election

By James Gurling | Fri 19th February 2016 - 10:30 am

General Election Review coverIn the aftermath of the May 2015 election, the FE tasked the Campaigns and Communications Committee with conducting a review. Today we are publishing our report and you can read it here.

Made up of myself, Sal Brinton, Candy Piercy, Martin Tod, Neil Fawcett, Tim Razzall, Jo Foster, and David Green, the review group received feedback from over 7500 party members.

In addition we conducted interviews with a wide range of people from MPs and former MPs to senior staff, PPCs, field organisers, agents and members of the House of Lords.

The size of the response was overwhelming, and despite the difficult subject matter, we witnessed a huge amount of optimism, hope, and belief in the capacity of the Party to sustain and rebuild itself in the months and years to come.

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Kathryn Ball

Obituary: Jonathan Webber MBE DL 24th February 1957 – 15th February 2016

By Kathryn Ball | Fri 19th February 2016 - 9:00 am

Jonathan Webber 1Jonathan Webber, the former West Midlands Chair (2011 – 2013) and one of the most popular figures among West Midlands Liberal Democrats, has died after a long battle with cancer, which he had described as “something of a nuisance and an inconvenience.” He was 58 years old and died peacefully at home cared for by his partner Kathryn Ball.

Born in Oxford, Jonathan spent most of his working life in a business environment.  Fluent in Greek he spent 17 years working in Athens and Salonika as a literary agent / publisher, whilst there he founded the “Athens Ramblers’ Cricket Club” and the “Thessaloniki Cricket Club”, he became Chief Executive of the British Greek Chamber of Commerce in Athens and returning to the UK in the ‘90s he joined the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) advising on trade with Greece and the Balkans.

More recently Jonathan was Director of International Trade at Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce where he was described as a “real one-off…a maverick.” Former Chamber Chief Executive Jerry Blackett said: “I realised he was never going to respond to traditional management. He was not one for bureaucracy or for rules but he never missed his targets and he got the best out of his team.”

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Antony Hook

Have your say: public consultation on the law of Misconduct In Public Office

By Antony Hook | Fri 19th February 2016 - 8:10 am

The criminal offence, which carries a maximum of life imprisonment, of Misconduct in Public Office is rarely charged but it has significance for people especially interested in political matters.

There is no definitive list of public offices for the purposes of this offence but it certainly includes local councillors and other elected officials, civil servants, local government officers and people appointed to statutory authorities (e.g. the board of a national park, or the Equality Commission).

The offence is committed when a holder of public office, acting as such

  • wilfully neglects to perform his duty and/or wilfully misconducts himself
  •  to such a degree as to amount to

…

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Rupinder Singh

Is Ukraine lost?

By Rupinder Singh | Thu 18th February 2016 - 7:00 pm

 

Is Ukraine lost? Again? Is the social contract between state and citizens fundamentally flawed?

We are now well past the “honeymoon period” of the post-Maidan street protests that ultimately led to the rather fast departure of the then president Yanikovich, who fled to Russia in 2014.

A spate of ministerial resignations at the start of 2016, an economy in dire straits and with a huge external debt overhang, having lost up to a third of its economic base from the loss of territories and ongoing conflict with Russia and being supported by western-supported international financial institution packages including dollops of soft EU macro-financial assistance, a false dawn with the so-called Orange revolution in 2004 and the Maidan of 2014…so which way reform?

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The Voice

Government spends nearly £5million on advertising the ‘National Living Wage’

By The Voice | Thu 18th February 2016 - 5:38 pm

 

A Lib Dem Parliamentary Question has unearthed the fact that the Government has spent nearly £5 million to advertise its ‘National Living Wage’ of £7.20 per hour.  This figure includes £750k on posters, £250k on newspaper advertising, £350k on social media advertising, £1.7million on TV, £300k on radio plus over £500k on digital display advertising and pay per click.

This huge amount of publicity is in spite of the fact that from April employers will be required by law to pay the new rate to people aged 25 and over.

The money spent on promoting the scheme would pay the wages for 372 people over the next year, calculated at £7.20 per hour.

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The Voice

Tim Farron in Brussels: “Britain is better in Europe, and Europe is better with Britain in it”

By The Voice | Thu 18th February 2016 - 5:00 pm

 

Tim Farron has been over to Brussels today, meeting our partners in the European Parliament. He discussed Britain’s place in Europe with them and with the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE).

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Iain Donaldson

The counter bias proposed in the All Women Shortlist motion will not in itself be enough to achieve balance

By Iain Donaldson | Thu 18th February 2016 - 3:34 pm

Spring Conference Agenda 2016The membership of the Liberal Democrats is almost 50% male and 50% female (I say almost because we have a number of members who are non-binary (they do not define as male or female) and I will say up front that when I refer to “all women shortlists” this does not mean I am excluding these non-binary candidates, I want and would strongly encourage them to seek selection.

The Liberal Democrats also instinctively seek parity between men and women (it is noticeable that not one man felt he could do a better job than the excellent women candidates who stood for election as Party President in 2014.  This was not out of some arranged plot visited upon us from Lib Dem HQ, it was simply a conclusion that we all reached of our own volition.

Why then can we not achieve gender balance in our parliamentary candidates by the same gut instinct?  Well actually we want to but there is disagreement as to how we go about it.

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Henry Foulds

We need a Lib Dem role model for disabled people

By Henry Foulds | Thu 18th February 2016 - 1:25 pm

 

A couple of days ago, I found myself in quite an unusual situation. As a candidate for May’s local elections, I was campaigning in my ward’s town centre when someone flung their arms around me and gave me a great hug.

She told me she’d been watching me and was gobsmacked to see me doing what I was doing. As a visually impaired candidate, people are frequently a bit shocked to see me knocking on their doors. But this was different. She introduced me to her five-year-old daughter, who had just started learning how to use a white cane.

We had a lovely chat. The girl told me her cane was named Dora, after Dora the Explorer, and I explained that my cane had an orange handle, because that’s my favourite colour.

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Nick T

Was Vince Cable proved right on austerity?

By Nick T | Thu 18th February 2016 - 8:42 am

When the histories of the coalition government come to be written, those chapters focussing on the role of Vince Cable will be some of the most fascinating. Vince’s fierce intelligence combined with a (perhaps deliberate) flair for the enigmatic meant he was involved in some of the most interesting of the coalition’s key moments.

One area of particular significance is likely to be the analysis of his views on austerity. Throughout the coalition Vince was often portrayed in the media — and by some Liberal Democrats — as a brave warrior fighting an axe-wielding Tory-Lib-Dem cabal of ideological austerians. Yet this seems to me to be precisely wrong.

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Newsmoggie

Farron: We should shoulder Labour out of the way and reclaim the Beveridge consensus

By Newsmoggie | Wed 17th February 2016 - 4:23 pm

Tim Farron has been talking to the online Disclaimer magazine, saying that it’s time to reclaim not just the Beveridge consensus but also the free market from the right, saying that the Tories are the champions not of a free market but one which is controlled by powerful corporations. He said:

I  fully count myself as a Beveridge liberal. Mostly because he believed in ambitious government that could improve the lives of its citizens.

So I want us to say that we should reclaim Beveridge’s ambition, his sense of mission of looking beyond what might be deemed possible towards what we believe is necessary. I want to reflect on the Beveridge consensus which was of course superseded 35 years ago by the Thatcherite consensus.

We should shoulder Labour out of the way and fully reclaim the Beveridge consensus as being Liberal by its birth, but we should then also seek to reclaim the free market from the Thatcherites.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems slam Tories’ approach to online safety

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 17th February 2016 - 2:56 pm

Liberal Democrat peer Jane Bonham Carter has  slammed the Tories’ plans to enforce age limits for pornographic websites as “a sledgehammer to crack a nut.” She said:

In a free, democratic society the answer is not just to ban everything. This risks being another example of the Government using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

The Government are jumping on poorly thought through proposals. Popular websites could easily fall foul of new rules when it is hard to define what should be blocked and even harder to technically do it.

The Tories should look at their own track record in this area. When they introduced internet filters many LGBT websites were blocked too, cutting people off from vital information and advice.

Rather than developing a banned-by-default approach we should be investing more in sex and relationship education at school to ensure that teenagers and young adults have a healthy understanding of relationships and sex to empower them to make good decisions.

The Government’splans have already been dismissed as ineffective by industry experts.

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Caron Lindsay

Crisis mental health care in the NHS must improve

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 17th February 2016 - 1:33 pm

I was struck by a blog in my Facebook timeline this morning. It was actually written a year ago today by Becca Plenderleith, who joined the Lib Dems in the wake of the election last year. She’s already contributed so much to the Party, writing for our Scottish members’ newsletter, making thoughtful and insightful contributions on mental health – and she’s also written for LDV, too. We are very lucky to have her.

In the post she shared this morning, she shared her experience of what passes for mental health crisis care in Scotland – and it just simply is not good enough. The experience she had mirrors other people’s experiences. I have heard of Accident and Emergency doctors, who clearly have no training in mental health, berating a shut-down self-harming teenager and tell them that they are wasting their time.  In that example, when the Child and Adolescent Mental Health people got involved, things improved remarkably, but it should never have happened in the first place.

I am horrified that a young person in crisis could be treated in such a callous way. I’m quoting from Becca’s post here with her permission:

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Caron Lindsay

Willie Rennie announces Scottish zero rate tax plan

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 17th February 2016 - 12:03 pm

Last night in his annual speech to the David Hume Institute, Willie Rennie set out plans for a plan to help low and middle income Scottish earners by introducing a zero rate band of tax to go beyond the raising of the tax threshold. Because he’s also announced a plan to raise income tax by 1p to secure a £475 million investment in education, this new tax plan is going to be revenue neutral.

Both Liberal Democrats and Labour have announced plans for a 1p rise in income tax. However, Liberal Democrats are focusing on what you would get for it – more college places, reversing education cuts, a pupil premium and more nursery education. Labour’s is so complex that everyone is talking about the tax part of it. Fair play to both, though, for actually trying to use the powers we have.

Under Willie’s zero rate plan, Liberal Democrats would build on our record in government when we increased the personal allowance by over £4,000, helping to lift more people on lower incomes out of tax. Tax revenues gained by investing in education and boosting business by closing the skills gap would create a zero-rate tax band.

Willie  contrasted the progressive Liberal Democrat proposals with George Osborne’s commitment to increase the Higher Rate threshold from £43,000 to £50,000 by 2020, giving record-breaking tax cuts to the richest and costing Scotland £400m.

He said:

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Chris Nelson

Keeping Britain in the EU: How reassuring the sceptics should mean more than talk of “sovereignty”

By Chris Nelson | Wed 17th February 2016 - 10:33 am

Over the last few months the political media has been transfixed by David Cameron’s efforts to “renegotiate” Britain’s relationship with the European Union. Whilst Tim Farron quite rightly describes Cameron’s demands as having much more to do with keeping the Conservative Party together than fixing anything more fundamental about the EU, the reasons for making this effort are obvious: reassuring nervous eurosceptics that Britain still has influence in Europe and neutralising fears (however unjustified) that the British voice will be somehow overpowered.

Nigel Farage responded by calling Cameron’s deal “a slap in the face for Britain”. So far, so predictable.  Yet right at the core of eurosceptic complaints is so often the insidious, sometimes devious suggestion that nothing we hear from Brussels can be trusted. When Blair got an opt-out from the Euro, the sceptics said we’d be forced in anyway. When Brown got an opt-out from the Fundamental Charter of Fundamental Rights, the sceptics claimed the European Court of Justice would simply ignore it. Cameron says we have protection from being overrun by the Eurozone? The sceptics claim it isn’t worth the paper it is written on.

In their deluded yet strangely persuasive form of paranoia, the Kippers argue that, even if it all seems reasonable on the surface, we can never trust the EU to keep their word and that our courts and our Parliament will be (supposedly) powerless to stop them.

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Tagged and | 41 Comments
Antony Hook

EU Ref Round-up: A jury advocate’s view of the debate strategy, travel industry backs IN, 1000 HSBC jobs and Obama wants to talk to you…

By Antony Hook | Wed 17th February 2016 - 7:40 am

Cameron’s rating and a jury advocate’s view on winning this case.

David Cameron’s personal ratings have slumped in the wake of his re-negotiation, which was greeted negatively by the Conservative press, reports the Independent.

It is my view that the Prime Minister cannot win the referendum if his rhetoric is “I have made the EU less bad”. He needs to make the case “the EU is a good thing.”

In my day job as a barrister I would not expect to secure a client’s acquittal by saying to the jury “my client is guilty of the offence but not as guilty as the …

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Keith Aspden

Welcome back to York…

By Keith Aspden | Tue 16th February 2016 - 5:31 pm

The timing of Spring Conference’s return to York is particularly significant for the city.

York Members and supporters 2015

As many will know, widespread flooding hit parts of the city over Christmas as residents and businesses were evacuated from their homes in the worst flooding seen since 1982.

The TV cameras and politicians who descended on York soon left, but the long hard clean-up operation has taken many weeks and for some will take many more.

The way local residents (as well as groups …

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Sally Hamwee

Debating the refugee crisis of 1938

By Sally Hamwee | Tue 16th February 2016 - 3:46 pm

Parliament is in recess, an opportunity to reflect on the first stages in the Lords of the Immigration Bill. Brian Paddick and I tabled the majority of amendments from opponents of the Bill which most of us would frankly just like to see thrown out.

It doesn’t need legislation for the Government to agree to give refuge to 3000 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who have fled conflict and made it to Europe – obviously. Equally obviously, if Parliament is considering legislation on immigration, Parliamentarians will use the opportunity to put pressure on the Government.

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Joe Otten

Video: Guy Verhofstadt on #EURef position negotations

By Joe Otten | Tue 16th February 2016 - 1:45 pm

Guy Verhofstadt MEP, leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe has commented on the ongoing negotations between the UK and other EU heads of government over the terms of a reform deal to keep the UK in the EU.

My press point on the ongoing negotiations on the UK's position in the EU #EUref

Posted by Guy Verhofstadt on Tuesday, 16 February 2016

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Posted in YouTube | 11 Comments
Antony Hook

EU Ref: Useful new resource for campaigners- INFACTS.org

By Antony Hook | Tue 16th February 2016 - 12:00 pm

A lot of party members tell me they feel a need for more factual information to help us win the EU Ref debate.

Within the party we have brilliant writers of leaflets and local press releases who, if supplied the information, can turn it into effective communication.

An excellent new resource has been launched that will help with this.  Infacts.org is a well presented website that contains briefings on key factual questions relevant to the referendum and rebuttals to the misrepresentations of the Quitters.  It is set up and run by a group of journalists, listed on the website and many of

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Santosh Dass

Lord Avebury was a giant in the struggle to outlaw Caste-based discrimination in the UK

By Santosh Dass | Tue 16th February 2016 - 10:25 am

This article is rather longer than usual but offers a different perspective on Eric Avebury and his commitment to international human rights. The author is Vice Chair of the Anti Caste Discrimination Alliance (ACDA), and the President of the Federation of Ambedkarite and Buddhist Organisations UK (FABO UK).

Eric-Avebury-March-2013

Lord Eric Avebury at an Anti Caste Discrimination Alliance-led protest outside Parliament on 4 March 2013 supporting legislation to outlaw Caste-based discrimination in the UK

I first met Lord Eric Avebury on 11 November 2009 at the official launch of the Anti Caste Discrimination Alliance (ACDA)’s report Hidden Apartheid – A voice of the Community that he willingly hosted for us in the House of Lords. He was the first parliamentarian to respond to ACDA. That report and that historic meeting would help shape Parliamentary consciousness to do with Caste-based Discrimination (CBD) and legislation during the following, critical months.

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Posted in Obituaries and Op-eds | Tagged | 3 Comments
Mark Williams MP

Britain must once again become a great humanitarian nation

By Mark Williams MP | Tue 16th February 2016 - 8:49 am

A few weeks ago I visited the ‘Jungle’ refugee camp in Calais to see first-hand the tragic situation right on our doorstep.

Television cannot capture the full desperation of the Calais camp. My visit met my worst fears: 5,500 people; 60% of them young men, and many children too, are living in miserable conditions in shanty towns resembling some of the worst parts of the Nairobi slums I visited last year; the difference being that in the ‘Jungle’ we were less than 2 hours from Central London.

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Posted in Op-eds | 17 Comments
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