John Stuart Mill is often quoted as describing the Tories as the stupidest party. The modern Conservative Party is many things, but at the top where they consider parliamentary and electoral strategy they are anything but stupid.
Those who think the withdrawing of the Statutory Instrument to amend the Hunting with Hounds Act is a victory for those opposed to any watering down of animal welfare legislation are cruelly mistaken.
It’s that time of year again – the Party Awards season, and the nominations pack is now up on the website. The awards recognise the exceptional and dedicated work our members do in our communities and this is your chance to tell us who we should be recognising.
It would be wrong to abandon every campaigning technique used in the 2015 general election. Despite the result, some constituencies saw unprecedented levels or door knocking, innovative new literature items and original online campaigning techniques. In seats like Hornsey and Wood Green – retaining 32% of the vote when the national average was 8% meant we were doing something right.
But the party also has to think about what it lacked – and how we could do things differently to improve our share of the vote in upcoming elections.
Federal Conference Committee (FCC) met on Saturday to decide which of the 52 motions submitted by members should be debated when we go to Bournemouth later this year. I’m sure many of you will be scrolling down to the end of this post to find out the good news, but for those who are new to the party or two FCC machinations, I shall quickly explain what FCC does and how it arrived at it’s decision.
The full FCC meets six times a year, three per conference. The first meeting in the cycle is general business, discussing topics such as future venues, stewarding and security needs, design of speakers cards, overall allocation of time between policy/speeches/Q&As, registration rates and so on. Before anyone asks, I should point out that the location of future conferences is a closely guarded secret until officially announced as we don’t want commercial companies block-booking accommodation in advance, as this puts the price up for ordinary members.
The Guardian reports:
David Cameron’s plan to relax the foxhunting ban is likely to fail after the Scottish National party decided to take the provocative step of voting against a change in the law that only relates to England and Wales.
After a meeting of its MPs in Westminster, the SNP decided it would vote down the motion even though it would only bring the law in England and Wales into line with Scotland by allowing hunts to flush out foxes with a pack of dogs before they are shot.
You might have missed it if you weren’t looking, but on Friday the Conservatives threw a bit more of our green policy out of the window, by scrapping a technical (but crucial) part of Zero Carbon Homes – allowable solutions. This measure essentially meant that developers would still be required to offset carbon emissions by paying into a green pot – even if they couldn’t build new homes to Zero Carbon standards. I wrote about it here, when the measure was previously announced by Stephen Williams:
“Where it would be all nigh impossible to build a carbon-tight home “on site”, developers aren’t let off the hook. Instead they contribute to a central pot of money which will go straight back into locking up any remaining carbon leakage in other “off-setting” schemes and carbon reducing initiatives. The net result is, as Lib Dem minister Stephen Williams describes, “No Carbon. None. Nil. Nought. Zip. Zilch.” Now that is not the case.
I still amazed when the Tories try to tell us that we can’t afford to green the UK economy. The truth is, we can’t afford not to. The UK’s low carbon business sector grew rapidly in the last parliament and is now five times larger than the aerospace industry and twice as large as the chemicals sector. The sector is well placed to capitalise on new global low carbon markets, which are now worth more than £3 trillion. We want to seize this opportunity, not throw it away.
Nick Clegg was interviewed by Andrew Marr on the Sunday Politics show yesterday. Amongst other things he discusses how PR could be a condition of any further coalition.
One of our volunteer stewards at Federal Conferences is in the news for having saved a man’s life. The Manchester Evening explains what happened in an article headlined Good Samaritans save life of man on motorway bridge.
Hamza Afzal, a student from Manchester, was driving from Bolton to Manchester with a friend, when they spotted a man standing on a motorway bridge, on the wrong side of the barriers. They stopped and managed to pull him back to safety just as he was falling unconscious.
Congratulations to Hamza on his quick thinking and timely actions.
George Gideon Osborne. Feared and distrusted by the left, the sensible and reasonable portions of his own party. And now he has given university students yet another reason to distrust him. In the Conservative majority budget issued on July 8 2015, the Chancellor introduced a barrage of attention-grabbing measures, many of which present disappointing news to youths – particularly university undergraduates.
The speculation that the first Tory budget since 1996 will be unforgiving for the young and the unemployed have, sadly, been realised. The National Living Wage (set to £7.20 by next April and £9 by 2020) is all very well for workers over 25, but will not apply to those under 25, who will still have to contend with a £6.50 minimum wage. This means that young people who have just left university will have to make their earnings stretch further to cover the rising cost of living that will result from a more robust economy, which will result from reduction in bank levies and cuts in corporation tax.
You’d be wise to get one if you haven’t yet voted in the Leadership election. The deadline for ballots to be returned in this Wednesday, so put it in an envelope NOW and get along to the postbox.
No … wait … we have some final LibLinks to share with you to help you make up your mind. Huffington Post published articles by both candidates on Friday.
First, Tim Farron wrote under the headline: The Time for Britain’s ‘New Federalism’.
I love the unitedness of our kingdom. Ours is a rich tapestry that is unrivalled in the world, a union of histories and rituals and oddities, stronger together than our individual parts. But our unity should never come at the cost of these individual streaks. We should never confuse togetherness for conformity; never seek to leak the colours away from our towns and cities and shores, for some bland notion of oneness. Union does not mean uniformity.
Scenes from Athens today, as momentous discussions take place in Brussels. Scroll down to view. Hover your mouse or finger over the photo to read the caption, and/or double-click on the image to see it in context on Getty Images.
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 422nd 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 (5-11 July, 2015), 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:
Many thanks to the 12,500 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…
Opinion: Britain’s Liberal Youth can flourish in a Lamb-led Liberal Democrats (107 comments) by Darren Grimes
Grayling: I’d rather face 56 SNP MPs than 57 Liberal Democrats (20 comments) by Caron Lindsay
Senior Lib Dems react to the budget (40 comments) by Caron Lindsay
The English are the last on this sceptred isle to realise that Britain is dead.
It’s hard to remember that the nation-state is a modern invention: the Treaty of Westphalia gave birth to the conception of crown and country. Britain herself was an elaboration on 18th Century statecraft.
Each of our constitutional nations brought their talents to bear on Britain’s great endeavour: the British Empire. A merchant empire defended with regiments of Welsh and Scots infantry and English seamen; managed by a ruling class composed of feudal aristocrats and nouveaux riche industrialists and merchants.
Something that stays with me from Monday’s East Midlands leadership hustings was Tim Farron saying that under him, our arms would ache with the quantity of leaflets we have delivered, while Norman Lamb pointed out that our pounding at the polls was not through any lack of leaflets, and that he wanted us to do more to stimulate liberal ideas, as the party had done in Jo Grimond’s time.
Full details of the agenda for Autumn Conference will be released in due course, but reports on social media say that a motion calling for Trident not to be renewed at all will be debated.
If passed, this would mean an end to a succession of fudges on the issue in recent, and not so recent, years.
Standing at a North London bus stop the evening after Britain went to the polls, I overheard a man give his take, on David Cameron’s surprising majority, to a friend:
You see people that don’t live in cities just don’t understand…they’ll always vote right-wing.
As someone from the countryside who has now voted for a hat-trick of different parties, I took offence in a quietly British way to his throwaway analysis of the left’s failure to make gains outside of London. And yet of course he had a point, too.
There’s a lot of those internet/Facebook quizzes going round, as usual. One of them asks several questions to show you which US presidential candidate one comes nearest to, in terms of policy.
Strangely enough, I and most of Lib Dem friends come out nearest Bernie Sanders. “Who he? – Ed” – was the first thought that ran through my mind, when that answer came up for me, although I had vaguely heard of the junior senator from Vermont.
Is the US the only country where a 73 year-old can be described as “junior”? And is it wrong that whenever Vermont is mentioned, I either think of Bill Bryson’s hilarious tales from Vermont or that fantastic old comedy programme with Bob Newhart where he ran a hotel in Vermont and spent much of the show opening the door and letting in gustfuls of snow?
Newshound covered this on Thursday, but here’s a second chance to view Guy Verhofstadt, Member of the European Parliament and leader of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, telling Alexis Tsipras very precisely and passionately what Greece has to do. It’s a real zinger of a speech (and much better than Nigel Farage’s foghorned nonsense).
If you haven’t seen this, it’s well worth looking at. It’s the one commentary on the Greek situation which, for me, has made real sense:
James Gourley worked for Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats as our official photographer until May.
He’s put up some super photos on this blog post.
Nick is seen at Go Ape where he famously went during the election, on the campaign bus, behind the scenes at Conference, sitting on the Government benches in the House of Commons, feeding a sea lion, waiting to catch a tube. He was even smiling when he was doing that!
You can see him delivering leaflets, blowing up balloons, rehearsing his speech for conference and much more.
The photos capture the mood of the moments beautifully and are well worth a look.
The Confederate Flag came down for the last time yesterday at the South Carolina State House.
It’s worth watching this speech below from South Carolina Representative Joseph Neal (thanks to Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire). It is a moving and dignified speech, which well explains the significance of the Confederate battle flag finally being consigned to a museum. He made the speech during the debate in the South Carolinian State legislature on the subject of the flag.
Matthew Teague writes an excellent article about the event over on the Guardian, concluding:
Last week, Ethnic Minorities Liberal Democrats held a very good hustings event in London where Tim Farron and Norman Lamb were put through their paces.
You can listen to the whole thing here on Soundcloud.
You can also read Lester Holloway’s report of for The Voice here.
Today, July 11th, is Srebrenica Memorial Day, “when we pay tribute to the victims of the Genocide, sending a clear message to future generations to say ‘Never Again’”. Those words are taken from the website of the organisation Remembering Srebrenica who had a stand at our Liverpool conference last March.
There have been events marking the 20th anniversary of the massacre all over the country this week, and they will culminate today. Here is a list of the events across the country.
A tweet from the Labour leader of Newcastle City Council won the internet yesterday. It shows the candidates for North West Durham in the 1992 election. Labour’s Hilary Armstrong represented the seat from 1987-2010, but her opponents in 1992 were interesting. There was one Theresa May for the Conservatives looking like she was about to leap out of the photograph and eat you if you disagreed with her and a very youthful Tim Farron.
He was just a month shy of his 22nd birthday when he stood in that election.
Thanks to my dad's pile of old newspapers, here are the candidates for the first election I voted in! pic.twitter.com/GTlLh0v87G
— Nick Forbes (@nick_forbes) July 10, 2015
It’s obvious that whomever wins the leadership we’re going to have to nurture a lot of new people (as well as the `old hands`.
I think it’s important that we do so working with the grain of that individual’s personality to allow it to grow for the benefit of the Party. After all, celebration of the individual is supposedly part of the Party’s DNA.
We have started to talk about mental health a lot – and rightly so. It’s a key aspect of our view that everyone should reach their own potential.
Let me introduce you to another concept: Neural Diversity.
What I mean by that is really taking into account the way an individual’s brain ACTUALLY works rather than as we think it SHOULD work. A key difference is that between a preference for Introversion and Extroversion.
One of the great things about the leadership contest is that every party organisation has submitted questions to the candidates on their area of interest.
The Association of Liberal Democrat Engineers and Scientists is no exception and you can see all Tim’s and Norman’s answers to a series of questions about science.
You can read them all here, but here’s a flavour of one question:
Both of you signed an EDM in 2007 supporting provision of homeopathic medicines through the NHS but then revised your support after a Commons STC report questioned the evidence in favour of homeopathic treatments. What resources would you call on personally as leader in order to obtain expert advice and how could the parliamentary party make better use of evidence?
Young activists have written open letters in support of the respective candidates in the Liberal Democrat leadership contest.
Earlier this week, 50 young activists, including Sam Bennett, the chair of IR Cymru, Liberal Youth Executive members and members from Scotland, England and Wales, wrote an open letter of support for Tim, saying:
David Anderson, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation’s recently published report on investigatory powers was debated in the House of Lords last Wednesday. Anderson was tasked with advising on what should replace the Communications Data Bill a.k.a. the Snooper’s Charter and other, existing legislation, that allows the state to invade individual’s privacy for the purposes of terrorism and crime prevention.
The Government Minister and other leading Tories talked-up the threat posed by terrorism. I told the House we should listen to Anderson who said in his report ‘claims of exceptional or unprecedented threat levels – particularly if relied upon for the purposes of curbing well established liberties – should be approached with scepticism’.
Lib Dem Peer, Paul Strasburger led the charge with a comprehensive critique of the existing legislative framework and how the police and security services had been caught misusing existing powers. Whatever follows must include greater safeguards and more effective scrutiny so as to ensure public trust.
Animal rights groups are reporting a planned vote re: fox hunting in the UK, with David Cameron hoping to appease hunting lobbyists by watering down the current legislation. The vote is scheduled for Wednesday 15th July leaving activists little time to fill petitions) and co-ordinate letter writing appeals to mobilise sympathetic MPs.
But how will the Lib Dems vote?
In terms of an outright repeal, the Daily Telegraph reported last month their belief that all eight remaining Lib Dems would vote to keep the law intact. But this is not a repeal, per se, but rather a set of amendments to bring existing practice in England and Wales “into line” with that in Scotland. At present, hunts in England and Wales have been allowed to ‘flush out’ foxes, along with certain other animals, under the auspice of pest control, as long as they are shot as quickly as possible. However, while hunts in England and Wales are limited to using just two hounds for such, the number of dogs that can be used in Scotland is unlimited. With pressure from rural constituencies in particular, will some of the remaining Lib Dems be convinced to vote in favour of the amendments?
Well, the BBC has given a little bit of a gift to the many Liberal Democrat conference goers who are Doctor Who fans. The new series starts on the Saturday night. Unfortunately, this presents a little bit of a dilemma to inveterate rally goers like me. Do I go and see the new leader at his first big event of the Conference, or do I go and watch Doctor Who with the other fans?
Conference is full of such clashes. In any given time slot there is likely to be at least 3 things you want to go to. To have one so early in the event, though, is unusual.
It would be really lovely if the Federal Conference Committee, at their meeting tomorrow, could look at the possibility of providing Doctor Who fans with a room and a screen somewhere so we could all watch it together. We never get the chance to do that and it would make us all very happy if they could. Here’s a taster of what we might see:
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