Lord William Wallace

William Wallace writes… Sources of UK extremism

By Lord William Wallace | Thu 4th February 2016 - 12:56 pm

Part of our role in both houses of Parliament is to hold the government to the commitments they – often reluctantly – give.  One of the five conditions Lib Dem parliamentarians established in return for supporting the extensions of air operations over Iraq to Syria was that the government should set up an enquiry into sources of funding for extremist versions of Islam within the UK.  Alastair Carmichael in the Commons, and myself in the Lords, are holding the Conservatives to the promise they made to report on this by ‘the Spring of 2016’. Alastair has pressed ministers on the size and quality of the ‘Extremism Analysis Unit’ set up in the Home Office to cover this.  I asked an oral question in the Lords yesterday (February 3rd) on how thoroughly overseas funding will be investigated, from both foreign government and from private sources. In both cases, the answers have been that the government is acting on this commitment, but there are clear reasons why we should continue to put pressure on them to deliver.

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Shoaib Bajwa

Do we need to reinforce our open-minded, tolerant and liberal credentials?

By Shoaib Bajwa | Thu 4th February 2016 - 10:24 am

Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities represent a growing proportion of the UK. In 2010 they made up a total of 14% of the population and 8% of the voters. Yet at the last general election the majority (52%) of BAME voters cast their ballot for Labour not the Lib Dems. In fact over two thirds – 67% – of the black community voted Labour, with 38% of the Asian community voting Conservative.

Lib Dem opposition to the Iraq war in 2003 won the party a legion of new supporters, many from BAME communities, who felt let down by Labour’s march to war. The result was that in the 2005 general election the Lib Dems polled 16% from ethnic minority voters, with support particularly high amongst Pakistani voters amongst whom they polled 25%. Fast forward a decade and Lib Dem support among BAME voters in 2015 had collapsed to just 4%. It’s clear that the Party urgently needs to address this, and find neat innovative ways to appeal to BAME voters whose trust has been lost perhaps because of lack of engagement and lack of attention at the top of the party.

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Antony Hook

Obama speaks out on EURef again

By Antony Hook | Thu 4th February 2016 - 8:01 am

Barack Obama at White House gun violence meeting

Just about every government in the world, except (UKIP’s favorite) Russia, has expressed a view that it hopes Britain remains in the EU. This includes Commonwealth countries and allies in North and South America, Africa and Asia.

President Obama intervened again this week by advising David Cameron in a phone call on Tuesday that the US sees Britain’s interests as best served in the EU rather than outside.

Of course, the White House will fully expect that this information will become public knowledge …

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The Voice

Kirsty Williams’ More Nurses Bill passes penultimate Assembly stage

By The Voice | Wed 3rd February 2016 - 7:54 pm

Kirsty Williams addresses the Liverpool Spring conference rally March 2015 Photo by LIberal DemocratsGood news from Cardiff tonight as Kirsty Williams’ Bill to ensure appropriate numbers of nurses in Welsh hospitals cleared its penultimate parliamentary hurdle. The Bill would see Wales become the first country in the UK with a legal duty to have safe nurse staffing levels on hospital wards.

The final stage will take place next week.

Kirsty can deliver her Leader’s speech to Welsh Conference on Saturday knowing that she is only the second AM to have got a Private Bill to this stage. The first was her Liberal Democrat colleague Peter Black with his Mobile Homes Bill.

Over 4,500 members of the public have signed petitions in support of the bill which, if it passes stage 4 next week, could receive royal assent in March.

Kirsty said:

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The Voice

Farron: Britain deserves better than Tory MPs fighting like rats in a sack

By The Voice | Wed 3rd February 2016 - 6:52 pm

Tim Farron has missed Cameron’s “Deal or no deal” performance today as he’s been away in Manchester and Edinburgh, but he’s been keeping an eye on developments. This is what he had to say:

The Prime Minister’s draft deal means the first stage of the campaign to keep Britain at the heart of Europe and global affairs is complete. Now, the Liberal Democrats will play a leading role in working and campaigning to deliver a ‘Remain’ result that will safeguard our economy.

Next Wednesday we will be launching our Liberal Democrat campaign to keep Britain in Europe. Our unity contrasts with the Tories.

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Caron Lindsay

The Lib Dem connection to a new film about R D Laing

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 3rd February 2016 - 3:13 pm

David Tennant and Elisabeth Moss start filming Mad to be Normal, about Scottish psychiatrist R D Laing.

From Screen Daily:

Shooting has begun in the UK on the project which charts the story of world-renowned Scottish psychiatrist Laing and his acolytes at Kingsley Hall, East London, during the 1960s.

Additional cast includes Michael Gambon (Gosford Park) and Gabriel Byrne (The Usual Suspects).

The film will be produced by London-based Gizmo Films, in collaboration with GSP studios and Bad Penny Productions, the production company led by Phin Glynn (The Unbeatables).

There’s a Twitter account for the film, too.

And, much as I don’t like linking to the Daily Fail, they have pictures of Tennant in costume.

I’ll certainly be first in the queue when it comes out.

But my interest is sparked not just because I’m a massive Tennant fan. Here’s a quote from the Executive Producer:

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Antony Hook

EURef Round-up: It’s on for 23 June…

By Antony Hook | Wed 3rd February 2016 - 1:53 pm

Cameron’s renegotiation package is clearly the current referendum news story.  There will be much analysis over coming days and many people (particularly Conservative MPs) who have sat on the fence will have to make their minds up.

The Liberal Democrat position is clear:

We think being in Europe is good for Britain.  We continue to think that after Cameron’s proposed reforms.

One of the proposals is a Red Card whereby 55% of member states’ national parliaments (i.e. 15 out of 28) can block proposed EU law.  This is a reform Liberal Democrats should welcome as supporters of parliamentary scrutiny.

The “proposed UK-EU settlement” will be published ,so we …

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Caron Lindsay

Is the Basic Income Guarantee an idea whose time has come?

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 3rd February 2016 - 1:40 pm

Way back when I was first involved in politics, the ideas that everyone should have a basic income and that tax and national insurance should be integrated were mainstream SDP/Liberal Alliance ideas.

The Greens have in recent years been the only party to advocate such a change but during the General Election, Natalie Bennett was unable to convince people that it was affordable.

This week, think-tank Reform Scotland has come up with a costed scheme to give every adult a basic income of £100 per week and every child £50. The authors, Liberal Democrat Siobhan Mathers and Scottish Green candidate James Mackenzie, acknowledge that there would be a cost, around £2 billion in Scotland, £12 billion across the whole UK and that personal taxation rates would have to rise by about 8%, but that nobody earning under £26,000 a year would be worse off. However, with 2 children, a £100k household would be over £1200 a year better off

It’s certainly radical, with those on lowest incomes gaining and those on £100,000 without children being around £2,200 a year worse off, but isn’t that what a progressive tax system is supposed to do? There is a question, though, around whether a £100k household needs to be mae £1200 a year better off courtesy of the state.

The report argues that there are seven big advantages of such a scheme:

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Phil Aisthorpe

Is protecting wildlife a political issue?

By Phil Aisthorpe | Wed 3rd February 2016 - 12:25 pm

Viewers of BBC’s Winterwatch last week were treated to some wonderful coverage of the private lives of key Scottish Highland predator species such as the golden eagle, fox, and pine marten and a species of particular interest here, a non-predator, the mountain hare. Mountain hares as their name suggests live in upland areas and this includes grouse moors. A grouse moor is an odd environment that at first sight looks natural but is in fact intensively managed in favour of a single species, the red grouse. The perceived villains here are the predators such as the crow, fox and weasel that take a share of the grouse eggs and chicks earmarked for a demanding clientele during the shooting season, and many such predators are routinely removed by gamekeepers in order to maintain artificially high numbers of grouse. However it may come as something of a surprise to learn that the inoffensive mountain hare is also high on the gamekeeper’s hit list. The mountain hare’s crime is to be a warm blooded mammal and therefore a potential host for the ticks that transmit louping-ill disease (don’t ask) to the hapless grouse.

Because the mountain hare is believed to transmit disease to the grouse it is intensively culled. In December 2014, Scottish National Heritage alarmed by the destruction, led calls for grouse moors to exercise ‘voluntary constraint’ on excessive mountain hare culling and last year a group of ten conservation groups in Scotland called on Scottish National Heritage to upgrade this to an immediate three-year ban to allow a breathing space for the conservation status of the species to be accurately determined. And this is the point of the story, the grouse moor manager is entitled to cull the mountain hare without restraint on little evidence other than supposition, whereas the conservationist has to scientifically prove beyond reasonable doubt that protection of the species is justified. The dice are therefore loaded; the jury is rigged. A far higher burden of proof is required to protect wildlife than that needed to destroy wildlife.

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The Voice

Farron challenges Scottish Tory Leader over EU Referendum

By The Voice | Wed 3rd February 2016 - 10:55 am

Way back in September last year, Scottish Tory Leader Ruth Davidson made some positive noises on the idea that Britain should remain in the EU. She’s been pretty quiet since, presumably not wanting to scare the many Eurosceptic horses in her own party. Her Twitter feed was silent on the issue yesterday as news broke of the draft deal

Tim Farron is up in Edinburgh today (and so far the weather is very sunny for him) and, ahead of his visit, he challenged Ruth to take on those in her party who want to take Britain out of the EU.

He said she should stop being scared of her right wing:

In England, the Tories have been hopelessly split on the issue of Europe for a generation. Now it seems that Ruth Davidson is running scared of her right wing in Scotland too.

The Prime Minister has come back with his deal. The phony war is over. It is time for people to take a stand.

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Paul Walter

Migrants’ benefits debate is a proxy channel for xenophobia in some quarters

By Paul Walter | Wed 3rd February 2016 - 9:39 am

“EU referendum: David Cameron wins Theresa May’s backing” – reads the Guardian headline this morning.

Hello? Theresa May is the Home Secretary! It is incredible that her backing for Cameron on this is presented as some sort of surprise. What the Prime Minister does should automatically have the backing of the whole cabinet. Are we saying that there are cabinet ministers who do not support the Prime Minister on his referendum stance?

The cabinet’s support for the PM on a crucial national matter appears to be in question. This is quite an extraordinary state of affairs.

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The Voice

Mulholland hails victory for tenant landlords after Government u-turn

By The Voice | Wed 3rd February 2016 - 9:19 am

The Casked CrusaderRemember back in 2014, Greg Mulholland and others secured a Government defeat to give tenant landlords the right to request a fair rent and end the beer tie?

Unsurprisingly, the Government did what it could to put as many obstacles in the way of landlords seeking that fair rent as it could. Sure, they could have it, as long as the pubco could increase the rent at the end of the year. They’ve had to u-turn on that now.

Pub champion Liberal Democrat MP Greg Mulholland (known in some quarters as the Casked Crusader) has long fought for the Market Rent Only (MRO) option, said that the u-turn was a major victory against a Government which has consistently refused to support landlords to get a fair deal.

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NewsHound

LibLink: Tim Farron: Now the draft plan is on the table, the referendum campaign begins in earnest

By NewsHound | Tue 2nd February 2016 - 4:48 pm

Tim Farron has been writing about the announcement of the draft EU settlement over at the Huffington Post. Well, actually, it’s more about the substantive issues of the referendum. His article is exactly the sort of positive voice the campaign needs, giving five reasons for us to remain in the EU:

1. Prosperity: Remaining in works for Britain. Britain is already stronger and better off trading and working with Europe. We are part of the world’s largest single market, allowing British businesses to grow and prosper.

2. Peace: After decades of brutal conflict, European nations came together in cooperation. To this day, neighbours and allies support each other in what remains the world’s most successful project in peace.

3. Opportunity: British people have more opportunities to work, travel and learn than ever before. Staying in Europe gives our children and grandchildren greater prospects, and the best chance to succeed.

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David Warren

Blue Collar Liberals update

By David Warren | Tue 2nd February 2016 - 2:50 pm

In October 2015 I wrote an article for Lib Dem Voice entitled ‘We Need More Blue Collar Liberals’. Since then I have been attempting to keep the issues raised by the article ‘live’, turning statements by leading figures in our party regarding encouraging people from lower socio economic groups to become more involved in the Liberal Democrats into concrete actions.

These efforts haven’t met with any success so far.

With the notable exception of EMLD, the dialogue has not resulted in anything concrete and a cynic might say that the party hierachy appears more than happy with the comfort zone of the status quo.

This has led me to consider launching a group probably called  ‘Blue Collar Liberals’, (although I am open to alternative suggestions), with the following founding statement:

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Kevin Lang

Adventures of a Liberal Democrat at the Iowa caucuses – Part 3

By Kevin Lang | Tue 2nd February 2016 - 1:20 pm

Screen Shot 2016-02-02 at 11.10.23Monday 1 February

It’s a polling day of a different kind. Rather than 15 hours of voting, everything is crammed into just 2 hours.
Across the state, individual caucuses will be held in an astonishing 1,681 locations. There is one caucus for every precinct (polling district) with each one requiring a chair to oversee proceedings and a speaker for each of the candidates. It requires a phenomenal level of planning and organisation by both the Democrat and Republican state parties.

I get out during the day and visit the Iowa Historical Museum with its brilliant ‘first in the nation’ exhibition, including memorabilia dating back to the first caucuses in the early 1970s. Geoff, my guide, easily wins the prize for the most overexcited Iowan of my visit so far. He can of course be excused on this, his day of days. He reels off facts and joyously regales the tale of when his neighbour offered his house as a caucus site in 2008, only for it to be overrun with voters in that record breaking turnout year. “He put the Clintons in his front room, the Edwards in his kitchen and Obamas upstairs”, he said, “he was able to fit all the Dodds and Bidens in his bathroom!”

And so caucus hour arrives at 7pm. I’m covering Polk County’s 80th precinct caucus, held in the Wright Elementary School on the south side of Des Moines. It’s a precinct in which Obama beat Romney by over 30% in 2012 so there are lots of Democratic voters for the three campaigns to haggle over.

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John Marriott

Putting our faith in ‘Leaders’ – There are lessons to be learned

By John Marriott | Tue 2nd February 2016 - 12:01 pm

The recent acquittal of the former Executive Head of the Lincoln Priory Chain of Academies and his Director of Finance appears to have caused a few raised eyebrows in many areas. It is not my intention to pass my own personal judgement on the rights and wrongs of the case. What concerns me more is the fact that the Department of Education considered there to be sufficient grounds to ask the local police to conduct an enquiry which eventually led to a court case that is set to cost the taxpayer a considerable amount of money.

This is not the first time that so called ‘Super Heads’ have made the headlines following revelations about their conduct. If you add to that the affair in 2013 of Lincolnshire’s Acting Chief Constable, who was first suspended by our Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), was exonerated by an enquiry and then reinstated with an apology from the PCC at a cost to the taxpayer of around £160,000, you can see that putting our faith in the judgement of individuals without effective and stringent checks and balances can land us in a great deal of trouble and cause embarrassment to institutions that ought to have our respect.

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Robin Teverson

Lord Robin Teverson writes…A greener future? It’s not in the Tories’ nature

By Robin Teverson | Tue 2nd February 2016 - 10:58 am

No-one can say that this Government has not fully embraced David Cameron’s mantra to ‘cut the green crap.’ Since getting to power they have, one by one, removed, restricted and reduced the green initiatives put in place under the Liberal Democrats’ watch.

Today, in the House of Lords, we will stand against the latest cuts. The Government plan to cut the Feed-in-Tariff scheme early will result in nearly 20,000 losing their jobs and half of the solar sector disappearing more or less overnight. The Government snuck this past the Commons, and now, given a chance in the Lords, we will send it back.

Today we will remind the Government that supporting green industry is vital to building an economy fit for the future, and, more importantly than that, it will save the world in the long run.

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Joe Otten

Theatre review: King Charles III

By Joe Otten | Tue 2nd February 2016 - 10:12 am

Picture Charles III, risen to the throne after a lifetime of waiting, ready to be consulted and give his advice on affairs of state, finding his views ignored and being unwilling in good conscience to give royal assent to a bill to regulate the press.

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David Allen

Why the polls really got it wrong

By David Allen | Mon 1st February 2016 - 6:38 pm

The statisticians appointed by the British Polling Council have spoken.  The cause of the 2015 opinion poll disaster was – wait for it – statistical sampling error.  Pollsters chose the wrong mix of people.  Never mind that they had previously blamed bad statistics for their 1992 disaster, and thought they had then sorted out how to do the maths.

Meanwhile, professionals and pundits agreed that asking which party had the best leader was, consistently, a more reliable guide to who would win.  Thus, if they’d just relied on the finding that Cameron led Miliband in 2015, they’d have called it right.

Hang on, though!  If the problem was really a faulty, Labour-biased sample, then why should that sample be any less biased when asked “Who’s the best leader?”  If you have a biased sample, changing the question you ask them cannot possibly get rid of the bias!

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Tim Farron MP

Let’s celebrate LGBT history month

By Tim Farron MP | Mon 1st February 2016 - 5:01 pm

LGBT history monthLGBT History Month is a wonderful opportunity for us all to celebrate LGBT’s contribution to society and promote a more equal and diverse society which benefits us all.

The Liberal Democrats have been steadfast in campaigning for LGBT equality and inclusion working with a variety of organisations to make sure that a multiplicity of voices are heard and considered in Westmister and beyond.

The last Parliament marked a historic step in challenging the status quo. The Equal Marriage Act driven by the Liberal Democrats in Government was celebrated up and down the country but it is not always just the big things that count. We have been calling for proper sex ed in schools, an end to discrimination against transgender individuals by the state and better representation of LGBT individuals in public life. This change will not come overnight but I am certain that with a coalition of organisations, activists, politicians and public personalities all working together with common purpose change will come.

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Mary Reid

LibLink: The Liberal Democrat vision of Caroline Pidgeon

By Mary Reid | Mon 1st February 2016 - 3:29 pm

 

During the week the Guardian published a very rounded post about Caroline Pidgeon and her bid to be Mayor of London.

It starts:

I ask her a gloomy question. She gives an upbeat reply. “Morale is actually very, very good in the party,” said Caroline Pidgeon, who has the possibly onerous honour of being Liberal Democrat candidate for London mayor. “We’ve got tons of new members in London who are excited and energetic, and that’s fantastic.” Her party says there are now 10,000 of them in the capital, the highest number for decades. Plus, council by-election results have perked up since last year’s general election gloom: wins in Sutton and Richmond, improved performances elsewhere. “This election is wide open,” Pidgeon enthuses. “We’ve got a new field of candidates and I’m hopeful that as the most experienced candidate with eight years at City Hall, Londoners will give the Liberal Democrats a good vote.”

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Peter Martin

Are we targeting the wrong deficit?

By Peter Martin | Mon 1st February 2016 - 1:56 pm

 

Keynes and his contemporaries did not share our present day casual attitude to the imbalances we see in international trade. The monthly, or quarterly, trade figures were a regular and prominent feature of our business news, at one time, but we have to look much harder to find those same figures now.

Keynes’s proposal that international trade be separated from domestic trade by the use of a separate international currency, the Bancor, formed part of the official British proposals at the 1944 Bretton Woods  conference  which set the international financial and monetary arrangements for the post war period. Unfortunately this was a step too far for the Americans at the time. The proposal, had it been adopted, would have penalised the surplus nations, making it less attractive for countries to run large export surpluses and would have encouraged the deficit nations to re-align their currencies to reduce their deficits.

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James Baillie

Community – a liberal value in a changing world

By James Baillie | Mon 1st February 2016 - 12:45 pm

 

Community is – rightly – considered a fundamental part of our values as liberals. Beyond its inclusion in our basic creeds, however, it is perhaps one of the less discussed and debated parts of Liberal Democrat belief. Whilst much ink is continually spilt over our positions on equality and liberty, what “community” means is perhaps too often taken as a given.

I want to suggest that we need to think about this more, because community has to stand at the core of a liberal society – and not just in the sense of localism that “community” is too often restricted to in discussions I’ve seen. If we are to be a party that seeks to liberate the people of our country, community is a crucial part of that process. The interpersonal links people make are vital on all sorts of levels; for exchanging information, for coming into contact with new people, for mental and physical health. These things form the difference between being able to positively use economic and social freedoms and condemning people to soulless individualism; nobody is liberated by being thrown as an isolated object into a rat race.

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Jane Dodds

A visit to Calais

By Jane Dodds | Mon 1st February 2016 - 11:26 am

Jane Dodds Calais

Last week I left Welshpool with my car rather more heavily loaded than usual- with sleeping bags and tarpaulins, all donated by caring Montgomeryshire people wanting to help refugees living in the cold of a Calais winter.

I’ve reported in full on my visit to the Calais refugee camp last week in several posts and videos on my facebook site. Please click the link to have a look.

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Kevin Lang

Adventures of a Liberal Democrat at the Iowa Caucuses Part 2

By Kevin Lang | Mon 1st February 2016 - 10:06 am

Iowa caucuses C-Span busSunday 31 January

After a rather dramatic and delayed journey to the US,  I’m finally in Iowa. Most folk on my flight from Chicago are either news reporters covering the caucuses or members of the US Congress stumping for one of the candidates.

The buzzword is ‘turnout’. There’s hope the numbers turning up to tomorrow night could break all records. Folk seem most excited about the weather….or the lack of it. At this time of year, Iowans are normally wading through feet of snow. Not this year. It’s cold but not painfully so and there are no snow storms predicted. “It’s perfect caucusing weather” my car rental guy told me.

The latest polls suggest a tight race on the Democrat side with the respected Des Moines Register poll showing it too close to call. There’s some scepticism about whether all these young students who have gone nuts for Bernie Sanders will actually turn out. I remember hearing something similar in 2008 about the supporters of some guy called Obama…

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The Liberator Collective

Issue 376 of Liberator is on its way to subscribers

By The Liberator Collective | Mon 1st February 2016 - 8:32 am

This issue’s free sample online content is the Commentary on how the party got both the vote on Syria wrong and the process leading up to it.

Also as a free sample, Seth Thevoz describes how, as he saw it, the attempted ousting of Nick Clegg after the disastrous results of May 2014 nearly succeeded – and why it didn’t.

Elsewhere the issue has news and gossip in Radical Bulletin, book reviews, Lord Bonkers’ latest thoughts and among the articles:

More Cats Needed: Sarah Green offers an answer to the Liberal Democrats’ essay competition

Not In My Name: By backing bombing in Syria the …

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Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #448

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 31st January 2016 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 448th 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 (24-30 January, 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

Tim Farron talks Wogan, refugees, EU and diversity on Murnaghan

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 31st January 2016 - 2:58 pm

Tim Farron was on Sky News Murnaghan this morning. It was quite refreshing to hear him introduced as “leading the charge” on the refugee crisis. It is actually blindingly obvious that we have been, but it’s not so often acknowledged.

The Murnaghan programme provides very helpful transcripts of their interviews, for which I am very grateful.

Terry Wogan

He was interviewed only an hour or so after the news that Terry Wogan had died and was asked for his reaction:

I am genuinely very, very upset. He formed an enormous part of my childhood, interviewing all sorts of people on his TV show but also the radio programmes, he was a peculiar and unique individual who appeals both to me – somebody who is obsessed with pop music – and my grandparents at the same time and I think that was his great strength, he spoke without arrogance or pomposity and he was a kind of warm and genuine figure in your living room and around the breakfast table and we’ll all very much miss him.

Refugee crisis

On refugees, he was asked if we should avoid creating a “pull factor:. He was clear that the way to do this was by creating safe and legal routes for refugees.

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Caron Lindsay

Our Iowa correspondent’s traumatic journey

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 31st January 2016 - 1:59 pm

Yesterday Kevin Lang told us how excited he was to be heading off to Iowa for the Democratic caucuses. He wrote that post in the departure lounge in Edinburgh. Thankfully, he is now safely in Chicago and on the way to Iowa, but his journey was, to put it mildly, not without incident.

Somewhere over Iceland yesterday afternoon, the pilot realised that two sets of the landing gear were not working. He had no choice but to turn and head back to Heathrow and make an emergency landing.

The Mirror has footage of the landing – and Kevin is quoted in the story, saying:

warned that we would be jettisoning fuel and then said emergency vehicles would be meeting us.

“I felt worried. You could hear the concern and seriousness in the captain’s voice when he spoke to the passengers.

He added: “It was very scary even for a frequent flier like myself.”

Here are his tweets as the situation unfolded:

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Caron Lindsay

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

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 31st January 2016 - 1:25 pm

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

Director of Elections Hilary Stephenson to leave after Spring Conference (18 comments) by Caron Lindsay

Farron says there’s “not a lot of truth” in Independent report on secret talks with Corbyn over electoral reform (47 comments) by Caron Lindsay

It’s our legacy – let’s proclaim it (58 comments) by Katherine Pindar

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