By Caron Lindsay | Published Sun 1st October 2017 - 9:17 pm
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 490th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere … Featuring the five most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (23rd-30th October, 2017), together with a hand-picked seven 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:
By George Kendall | Published Thu 28th September 2017 - 3:19 pm
Have you ever heard the following?
“The government should stop subsidising exploitation wages.”
“I work hard for my money. Families on child tax credits need to get up off their backsides.”
If you’ve canvassed on council estates you probably have. And, no doubt, the #labservatives have too, which is why both of them supported massive cuts to welfare.
There are good reasons for continuing with in-work benefits. The policy of both Labour and the Conservatives is to raise the minimum wage and cut benefits. This will result in employers replacing lower paid employees with automation; reorganising
By Caron Lindsay | Published Wed 27th September 2017 - 8:19 pm
As if we needed any further proof that the best people were born in 1967 after Nick and I celebrated our Golden Jubilees this year, it is Willie Rennie’s special day today.
We have to remember that Willie has done a lot more with his half century than fool around with cute animals. In 1993 he helped Diana Maddock win the Christchurch by-election. In 1997, he moved back up to Scotland where he was Chief Executive of the Party during the first devolution referendum. Then he moved to be Chief of Staff at the Parliament. All the early coalition achievements in Scotland – free personal care, free university tuition, had his fingerprints on them.
Then in 2006, he grabbed his place in history as a Lib Dem by-election winner. He audaciously took the Dunfermline and West Fife seat in Gordon Brown’s back yard after a dreadful few weeks for the party when we’d deprived ourselves of a leader and had a new tabloid scandal breaking roughly every half hour.
Since he became leader of the Scottish Lib Dems in 2011, he’s challenged the SNP Government on education and mental health, centralisation, justice, the Police, civil liberties and many other issues.
In the party, he put his own reputation on the line by championing radical diversity measures that saw Scotland elect 2 male and 2 female MPs this June. That took courage and determination on his part.
He has been the leader the party so desperately needed after the drubbing we took in 2011. He has campaigned with energy and always a massive smile in every part of Scotland.
And what is he doing on his birthday? Giving a speech on Brexit to the SCER Europa Institute. He’s challenging the SNP, Ruth Davidson the Scottish Conservative Leader who supported Remain and Scotland’s Labour leadership contenders to get on board with a Brexit Deal referendum. He says that such a vote would be entirely democratic and asks why we shouldn’t trust the people to give their opinion.
At the consultation meeting the Lords Party held at our Bournemouth conference, the strongest plea that came from round the table discussing Brexit was for more information on what is happening. We will take that back to the wider parliamentary party and our small and overworked group of researchers, and see what more we can do. There are some really good papers from Nick Clegg’s advisory group on the party’s web site, which explore the underlying issues; but the politics of the negotiations are moving and changing almost every week, and I guess that campaigners want usable material to respond to that. So meanwhile, here are some initial suggestions on how best to play the issues in different places.
The most important shift in the Brexit debate over the summer has been from general principle to detail, as negotiations get under way, and as the deadline of March 2019 begins to loom. Boris Johnson’s Telegraph article was a denial of where we are – sweeping aside the difficult questions about HOW we manage a mutually-advantageous relationship with the EU after we leave, to argue that those who say Britain will suffer if we don’t get an agreement are talking the country down, and that a close external association with the EU will make the UK ‘a vassal state’, in ‘a national humiliation.’ This, we must all repeat vigorously, is Brexit denial, like climate change denial: refusing to admit the detailed evidence that there are problems to resolve. The detail matters, we must insist against the ideological sceptics: crashing out without a deal will cause chaos in the UK economy, cost jobs, and endanger standards.
Let’s take the issue of border controls. 2.6 million trucks pass through Dover every year, five times as many as when the Single Market started in 1992. They spend an average of 2 minutes each passing the border. If this extended to 20 minutes each (the fastest one estimate suggests they could be cleared outside the customs union), the queues would soon stretch along the M20, supermarket shelves would empty (1/3 of our food is imported from the EU) and assembly lines would grind to a halt (Honda’s Swindon plant alone depends on 350 truck-loads of components a day coming through Dover). Revenue and Customs are trying to introduce a new computer system, but that may not have the capacity to cope with the number of transactions required outside the customs union, and in any case may well not be ready by March 2019. Estimates of additional customs staff needed by then are in the thousands; but recruitment has not yet begun. And Boris doesn’t think we need a transition arrangement after that date?
By Caron Lindsay | Published Wed 20th September 2017 - 10:25 am
Having covered Not the Leader’s Speech, it is only fair to give you the chance to see the actual Leader’s Speech again. It was very different in style from the bouncy style of Tim Farron, but no less compelling to listen to.
You can watch it in full below and the text follows. There are four quick observations I’d like to make, first, though.
Firstly, note that PR has been displaced as our number 1 ask on political reform by votes at 16. By doing so, Vince emphasises his commitment to ending intergenerational unfairness. He talked about how young people had had no say in their future which had been limited by older people voting for Brexit.
He wants to ensure that they have a say in future decisions.
This all makes perfect sense as it is achievable and something that has been our policy for as long as I can remember anyway.
I might have been inclined to take the joke about us inviting Corbyn to join the Anti-Brexit People’s Liberation Front out. It was a joke aimed at highlighting Corbyn’s lefty student style of politics, but it didn’t work out of context and jarred slightly when I saw it on tweets from the BBC.
Thirdly, he did acknowledge that the issue of student fees was still a problem for us. A review is fraught with problems as it then has to come back to Conference and the whole thing is gone over again and the papers write about it all over again. Of course, he couldn’t do anything else or he’d have been accused of trying to make policy over the heads of Conference but it is to be hoped that this review happens very quickly. If David got his skates on and had something ready for Spring, that would be entirely satisfactory. The whole thing is a risk, but less of a risk than doing nothing. We have to be seen to be taking this one on.
Fourthly, he wants us in Government. On our own. A big ambition, but I’d rather see him say that than say that he wants us to go up a wee bit in the polls. We have to show what a Lib Dem world would look like.
Finally, the best bit of the speech for me was this:
We know, of course, that our call will be resented by the Brexit fundamentalists.
We will be denounced as traitors and saboteurs.
I’m half prepared for a spell in a cell with Supreme Court judges, Gina Miller, Ken Clarke, and the governors of the BBC.
But if the definition of sabotage is fighting to protect British jobs, public services, the environment and civil liberties, then I am a proud saboteur.
It’s very bold and I hope we all use that quote as often as possible from now on.
Vince had 3 things to do at this Conference. He had to firmly establish us as the Party of Remain – unequivocally fighting to stay in the EU. Secondly, he had to showcase his credentials as the foremost economically literate grown-up on the political scene in this country. He did that. Thirdly, he had to showcase a wider commitment to sort things out for those people who voted Leave because they are struggling. He has put tackling inequality, most particularly wealth and inter-generational unfairness, front and centre of what he wants to achieve. As Jo Swinson said on Sunday, an exit from Brexit is necessary but not sufficient.
By The Voice | Published Sun 17th September 2017 - 12:50 pm
Here is Jo Swinson’s speech to Conference.
Let me take you back to a rainy Saturday morning, 28 years ago. I’m doing what many 9-year-olds do on a Saturday morning, watching TV. It’s a children’s programme called Going Live, presented by Philip Schofield – some of you might even remember it, and depending on your age, nostalically feel it was no match for Swap Shop or Saturday Superstore.
“That particular morning’s show sticks in my mind because in amongst Gordon the Gopher, kids’ cartoons, and celebrities getting gunged, there was an amazing competition. The prize was to win a piece of the Berlin Wall, recently torn down in one of the most pivotal moments of 20th century history.
“It was pretty obviously in an entirely different league to the usual phone-ins to win toys, or CDs, or tickets to concerts. I didn’t win the competition, but later on my dad visited Berlin and brought me back a little piece of that history.
“I think it’s fair to say that as a child, apart from one Christmas watching the animated film “When the Wind Blows”, I hadn’t given much thought to nuclear war. But the cloud had hung threateningly over the world, at times perilously close to disaster on an unimaginable scale.
“Thanks to the diplomacy, courage and political leadership which led to the end of the Cold War, we have enjoyed three decades with much reduced levels of nuclear threat, until now.
By Geoff Payne | Published Fri 15th September 2017 - 11:56 am
This report relates to the meeting of the Federal Policy Committee which took place on 13th September 2017. The committee had not met for a few months. Its last meeting, which was scheduled for 12th July 2017, had been cancelled. There was therefore quite a lot to catch up on.
Vince Cable Update on Priorities
It hardly needs saying but, since the last meeting, a new Leader has taken over. Vince Cable attended the meeting to update the committee on his priorities.
Vince said that he had been to eighteen meetings around the country as a substitute for leadership hustings. He had also …
By Bernard Aris | Published Wed 13th September 2017 - 4:37 pm
For Dutch Social Liberals, being a party activist and being a feminist have always been strongly (90%) overlapping aspects of our social behavior and social activism. Whereas Dutch Social Democracy until 1934 neglected the women’s emancipation struggle because the emancipation of all proletarians came first, we are proud that from the beginning, Dutch social-liberal parties (Radikale Bond/RB, 1892-1901, VDB, 1901-’46, D66) have always had feminist spokespersons in their parliamentary parties. Aletta Jacobs, our most famous late 19th century feminist, was a RB founder/activist, and it was a VDB bill which gave Dutch women the vote. And the 1966 founders of D66 were strongly involved in the Second Feminist Wave (raising male consciousness about issues like equal pay, equal family law rights, childcare and family planning), and proudly conscious of the RB and VDB feminist tradition.
And British feminists, Millicent Garrett Fawcett (and her sister, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson) in particular, played an indispensable role in getting that Dutch feminist tradition going.
In 1870-’76 a young Dutch liberal, Victor Gerritsen, lived in London where he immersed himself in the Radical and Liberal scene around John Stuart Mill and the Garrett sisters. In those years (thanks to permission by liberal prime minister Thorbecke), Aletta Jacobs was able to study medicine including her Ph. D. promotion. On his return here, Gerritsen heard about this, and that Jacobs wanted to study medical practices in London. Gerritsen wrote her, giving her useful contact addresses, and telling about the advent of British female medical doctors (this proved the start of their love- and later marriage relationship).
According to the authoritative biography of Jacobs, she visited London in March-September 1879. Via the brothers George and Charles Robert Drysdale (women’s doctors and pioneers in Neo-Malthusianism) she met Elizabeth Garrett (Britain’s first female doctor meeting the first Dutch one), and worked with her in the London Medical School of Women, New Hospital for Women, and in Garrett’s “St. Mary’s Dispensary” aimed at mothers and children. Via Elizabeth, Jacobs also met Millicent Garrett and her husband, the Cambridge economist/suffragist Henry Fawcett (their mutual supportive, loving relationship was to be copied by Jacobs and Gerritsen), who were more involved in the women’s voting right movement. Gerritsen already subscribed to the suffragist “Englishwomen’s Review”, and had his British friends send him new Liberal, feminist and radical publications; when the Dutch feminist movement got started in the 1880’s, his substantial library was used by everybody in Dutch social liberalism and feminism.
By Jane Reed | Published Wed 13th September 2017 - 10:25 am
I am writing this in response to Paddy Ashdown’s Essay to the Party of Monday 11th September in which he extolls us to follow Vince Cable’s lead and start coming up with our own new, dangerous ideas and debate them at conference.
I know from talking with friends and meeting people on the campaign doorstep that many people have a very negative attitude to the Liberal Democrats. I know from being a member since 2015 that the party is well organised, with plenty of ground troops, puts its principles into practice in how it deals with members, has socially valuable ideas and is full of very able and well intentioned people perfectly capable of government. However this does not seem to be picked up by many of the electorate. If we are to gain traction with the electorate something has to change. One aspect that I think would be worth looking at is our branding. If this was changed and was seen to be genuine in that the new branding reflected other more substantial changes I think it could have a positive effect. I know rebranding is often seen as a nightmare and certainly can be expensive but if done at the right moment can be effective.
I have not given great thought to how the branding could be changed but just a few comments. I think we should stick with the yellow colour but perhaps make it a more golden yellow. I personally like our present emblem with its sense of freedom and development but I wonder if it comes across as rather weak. One possible emblem, suitable in terms of shape, could be a sunflower head but it is yellow, possibly used by BP and would be probably perceived as too soft. Perhaps we should also consider changing the name of our party.
This year, the organisers are being uncharacteristically cagey about their line-up, tantalising us by drip-feeding out the contestants who will be competing for the prized accolade of Best DJ. The title has been won for the last two years in fantastic style by Jo Swinson. The last time I spoke to her about it she was adamant she wasn’t going to go for the hat-trick.
So far, we know that Lib Dem Newbies co-founder and force of nature Daisy Benson and Lib Dem Peer and former MEP Sarah Ludford will be taking their turns at the decks.
Thank goodness somebody is out there saying that immigration is actually a good thing and that this narrative that these foreigners are coming over here and taking our jobs and driving down wages. Step forward one Vincent Cable, writing in the Guardian:
At the heart of the politics of immigration is the belief, repeated by Theresa May as a fact, that immigrants, especially unskilled immigrants, depress wages. At first sight the argument seems plausible – and undeniably there is low-wage competition in some places. But there is no evidence that this is a general problem. When the coalition embarked on its review of EU competences in 2013, I commissioned a range of reviews and studies to establish the facts. They showed that the impact on wages was very small (and only in recession conditions). By and large, immigrants were doing jobs that British people didn’t want to do (or highly skilled jobs that helped to generate work for others). This research was inconvenient to the Home Office, which vetoed the publication of its results. I have now written to the prime minister to ask her to publish them as part of the current public debate.
So, the Government has evidence, commissioned by Vince, that the right wing tabloid press is talking hogwash and refuses to publish it.
And he makes an important point about the costs of immigration and who they affect:
By Caron Lindsay | Published Wed 6th September 2017 - 8:30 pm
For me, the Liberal Democrats have always been about reducing the inequality that poisons our society, that holds people back from opportunities.
We have always talked about it, but perhaps in the last few years the language has been a bit different. I was really chuffed when Vince talked about the need to tackle inequality so explicitly in his leadership manifesto. Today, his first major speech since becoming leader is on this issue and you can watch a clip here.
The full text of the speech is below. It’s thoughtful, serious stuff as you would expect.
Yes, under his leadership we’ll be looking for the exit from Brexit, but our main mission as a party is to do something about this inequality. That works for me.
Politicians talk at length about fairness and unfairness. Verbal confetti. Bland. Something almost everyone can relate to emotionally. And it can be defined in so many different ways that it can be applied in almost every situation, for about every audience. Inequality narrows the subject down a bit but, again, has a wide range of definitions and meanings.
Putting aside the health warnings and the academic qualifications there is however, in the UK in 2017, something stirring around the idea of inequality: something new and worrying. It starts from the observation, or the belief, that inequalities of income, wealth and opportunity, between classes, regions and generations, are getting worse; that Britain is becoming relatively as well as absolutely unequal when we look at comparable countries, especially in Europe; and that this inequality is not merely offensive to the sensibilities of progressive minded folk but is doing serious damage to the wider society and economy.
Sometimes an event crystallises this feeling. The Grenfell Tower disaster wasn’t just a horrific accident with a large loss of life but illustrates in a graphic way that relatively poor people were not listened to by those in authority and attracted a casual approach to life threatening risk. And close by geographically, but light years away socially and economically, lived London’s super-rich.
What motivates me personally and politically is the way this this new Britain contrasts with the more egalitarian culture and mobile society that I grew up with: parents who progressed in 20 years from being factory workers living in a terraced house with an outside loo to being part of the professional class living in a detached house; from parents who left school at 15 progressing though ‘night school’ to a son at an elite university. There were of course ‘posh’ people in post-war Britain but they were few and largely inconspicuous; and there were poor people on the council estates but they were distant relatives or friends and we played and watched football together. A provincial British city, even today, does not have the jarring contrasts of London; but my sense is that even there, big differences in living standards and opportunities have opened up.
By The Voice | Published Wed 30th August 2017 - 8:55 am
Vince Cable has said that Theresa May’s visit to Japan has descended into farce before it has even begun. This was after the government briefed that a post-Brexit Britain would seek a trade deal with Japan based on the existing EU-Japan deal.
He put a reality check on the government’s spin:
Theresa May’s trip to Japan to gain a trade deal was already of questionable value because there can be no fresh agreements with other countries until we leave the EU.
But this staggering statement by the government just adds a whole new level of absurdity to their negotiating strategy. It is now saying that the best trade deal we can possibly hope for with Japan post-Brexit is the trade deal we already have as a member of the EU.
The likes of Liam Fox were promising a new dawn of improved trade deals but this clearly shows that even the government now recognises that the best possible deal we can get with one of the world’s largest economies is the deal negotiated by the EU.
By Kirsten Johnson | Published Fri 18th August 2017 - 12:40 pm
One of the key elements in my campaign for election as Oxfordshire County Councillor was the cut in funding many of the Children’s Centres throughout Oxfordshire.
The closure of the Maple Tree Children’s Centre, Wheatley, in my patch inflamed the local community. Many parents and carers relied on the services and support provided at the Children’s Centre for health advice, parenting support, breast-feeding counselling, and meeting other local parents/carers.
This has been a big local issue. Our new Oxford West and Abingdon MP, Layla Moran, secured a debate in Westminster Hall on Children’s Centres. She moved that, “That this House has considered the role of children’s centres in tackling social inequality.” You can read the full debate here.
Of those children’s centres slated for closure, communities were given the opportunity to keep their centres open. Residents of Wheatley rallied and a group was set up. The hope is that they will re-open the Maple Tree Children’s Centre from September, albeit with more limited services.
By Caron Lindsay | Published Wed 16th August 2017 - 5:33 pm
You do have to wonder if the @jameschappers Twitter account is a parody or has been taken over by the Brexiteers who are tweeting from some holiday bar for fun. It’s doing some seriously weird stuff at the moment, including suggesting that Vince Cable is going to be launching Chapman’s new anti Brexit Party on 9th September. Seriously.
Lib Dems strongly pushing back on idea Vince Cable is backing anything involving James Chapman. It’s possible they might be at same event. pic.twitter.com/8OEPAQWhHM
By Joe Otten | Published Tue 15th August 2017 - 1:20 pm
Hardly a day goes by on my social media feeds without some form of the following conversation:
Commentator/political has been: What we really need is a new moderate centre party in the UK, standing up for all the internationalist, tolerant liberal values that Corbyn and May have abandoned.
Liberal Democrats: Helloooooo!!!!!
Every time somebody calls for a new centre party, a puppy dies, goes the tweet.
It is always more an observation than a plan. Starting from 0% and 0 MPs and councillors is always going to be harder than starting where we are. But I don’t think the commentators and has beens are being obtuse. There are reasons they are not all saying we should join the Liberal Democrats, and I’d like to reflect on those reasons and what we can do about them. Do please all submit further articles expanding this theme.
By Helen Flynn | Published Thu 10th August 2017 - 8:52 am
At the recent SLF Annual Conference in July, a well-attended fringe session discussed the benefits and drawbacks of Basic Income.
My contention, as Chair of this session, was that we now need to be looking more closely at Basic Income, given increasing robotisation and technological change that will massively shake up conventional work, and given that our welfare system is creaking and needs modernisation. Basic Income is a policy that seems fundamentally socially liberal, and so it seems to naturally deserve attention from the SLF and all who are socially liberal.
The proposals are based on the Citizen’s Income Trust ‘pure Basic-Income’ model. Disability support and housing costs are not included in the scheme as they are not in the Citizen’s Income Trust’s scheme.
Housing and council tax benefits (and, for the record, disability payments) are an important source of support to those at the bottom of the income distribution.
An option which the RSA proposes for further exploration is the introduction of a ‘Basic Rental Income’. The Basic Rental Income would not be income-contingent and therefore does not have the same disincentive or perverse incentive (eg family break-up) effects as housing benefit and council tax credit. A Basic Rental Income based upon local market conditions would be granted to every individual who rented rather than owned a property. Local authorities would retain their statutory duty to house the homeless and should be given freedom to borrow and invest in new low-cost housing.
We’d like to quash the rumour that we got fed up with Mark Valladares here at LDV Towers and therefore banished him to the most northerly inhabited archipelago in the world.
There is simply no truth whatsoever in these whisperings.
Seriously, Mark Valladares is a long-standing Liberal Democrat Voice editorial team member. On the team, we really do value his calm, wise and supportive counsel. He is also known as @honladymark on Twitter, and as a Liberal Bureaucrat, Creeting St Peter parish councillor and Liberal globe trotter.
By ALDC | Published Wed 2nd August 2017 - 10:02 am
We’ll provide the pizza, if you come and make some calls… followed of course by a trip to the pub!
The phone bank makes a real difference, giving you the chance to encourage uncertain voters to make their voices heard, and provide real time feedback for the teams campaigning on the ground. It’s also really important after the General Election that we continue to be successful in our local government by-election campaigns.
Our next Give It A Go – Phoning evening is Thursday 3 August, between 6-8pm when we are focusing on gaining two seats from the Conservatives. We’ll provide a briefing on the areas we phone through to, so you’ll have all the answers to whatever the voters ask of you.
By Michael Taylor | Published Fri 21st July 2017 - 11:55 am
I just visited an amazing exhibition in Montreal at La Musee de Beaux Arts, entitled ‘Revolution’, all about the sixties, when I was a teenager. The revolution in question was the change in art, ideas, politics, power, dress, music etc etc that occurred in the late 1960s, which culminated in the 1968 student riots, Expo ’67 in Montreal and Woodstock.
Many people today, especially young people it seems, criticise the sixties as a time of fantasy, forgetting what life had been like before the so-called swinging sixties. Before the sixties, (male) homosexuality was illegal, women were second class citizens, treated as appendages of their husbands especially in regard to finance, people were hanged for murder, computers and the internet were non-existent, books, plays and films were rigorously censored and non-white people were subject to overt harassment and discrimination. Who can forget the prosecution of the publishers of Lady Chatterly’s Lover – the book the prosecutor said you would not want your wives or servants to read! Or the shocking Tory campaign in Smethick in 1964, when the Labour MP Patrick Gordon-Walker lost his seat to a campaign of ‘If you want a ******* for a neighbour, vote Labour’.
During the sixties, homosexual acts between consenting adults in private were made legal, the Race Relations Act outlawed much discrimination based on colour or race, hanging was abolished, abortion was legalised up to 28 weeks and the voting age was reduced to 18.
The sixties saw an unprecedented revolution in fashion in which the UK through designers like Mary Quant and the Carnaby Street shops changed clothing forever from the somewhat staid post war styles to the modern ever changing fashions of today. The Women’s Liberation Movement started demanding equal rights for women and the end of patriarchy, which, in Britain, eventually led to the Sexual Discrimination Act and the Equal Pay Act in 1975.
We’ll provide the pizza, if you come and make some calls… followed of course by a trip to the pub!
The phone bank makes a real difference, giving you the chance to encourage uncertain voters to make their voices heard, and provide real time feedback for the teams campaigning on the ground. It’s also really important after the General Election that we continue to be successful in our local government by-election campaigns.
Our next Give It A Go – Phoning evening is Thursday 3 August, between 6-8pm when we are focusing on gaining two seats from the Conservatives. We’ll provide a briefing on the areas we phone through to, so you’ll have all the answers to whatever the voters ask of you.
If you’ve never given it a go before – I only made my first calls back in January and now I run the evenings – which just shows that anyone can get the hang of it! And we’ll be on hand at all times to show you how the system we use to record calls works, and answer any questions that you might have.
By Caron Lindsay | Published Wed 19th July 2017 - 8:55 am
Tonight at midnight, Tim Farron hands over the reins of Liberal Democrat power to Vince Cable. We’re showing some of his best bits in his two years as leader.
Here is his passionate, heartfelt first speech to Conference, given just days after the death of 3 year old Aylan Kurdi who was killed while crossing the Mediterranean as his family fled to what they hoped would be safety in Europe.
The Liberal Democrats are preparing for new leadership at a time when a gaping vacuum continues across the British political spectrum. Our strong and motivating voice is needed more than ever. The challenge is how to make it heard.
I wrote earlier advocating broad brush changes to the party (Get clever, get brave and reform to win,). I now follow up with four examples of initiatives that could give us high, positive impact with minimal paperwork.
First, investigate bad practice. In March, the party brilliantly uncovered EU nurses quitting the NHS through a Freedom of Information request. There needs to be a stream of such reports. Within our membership is an array of skilled investigators from the security services, lawyers, journalists and others. Investigative units could uncover bad and illegal practice in housing, the environment, the health service and so on with results fed through our MPs and peers to hold government to account. This would require an element of top-down management, but if handled effectively, one stunning investigation after another could have the public on the edge of their seats, expectantly waiting to see what appalling misdeeds the Liberal Democrats uncover next.
By Nick T | Published Thu 13th July 2017 - 12:34 pm
“Emily Thornberry just took down the entire Tory party in 45 seconds” says the caption. Below is a video of Emily Thornberry at the despatch box at yesterday’s prime minister’s questions performing, it has to be said, very well.
It is the sort of thing we all see dozens of times every day, scrolling through our social media feeds whilst we wait for out train, lie in bed or pretend to listen to a friend’s anecdote.
A couple of weeks ago I was due to meet with one of my counterparts in the Conservative whips office. These meetings are routine and are not normally the subject of comment. This particular meeting was intended to deal with allocation of offices between the parties for MPs to use. In fact the meeting did not go ahead although I DID meet the Government Chief Whip’s Private Secretary (known inside the bubble as the usual channels).
The meeting that did not happen (mundane though it was) somehow found its way into the Daily Mail who proceeded to speculate wildly about whether the meeting was indeed a sign that the Lib Dems were now cosying up to the Tories to stitch up a secret coalition deal.
Of course at that time the Conservatives were trying to negotiate a deal with the DUP, negotiations were going badly (due mostly to their own mismanagement). Briefing the press in this way was a mark of the desperation with which they were seized.
So when I read in the Times yesterday that Tim Farron’s chief of staff Ben Williams had met with his No 10 counterpart Gavin Barwell last Thursday I took it with a pinch of salt. Not least because I knew that Ben was in Leeds on Thursday.
By The Voice | Published Wed 28th June 2017 - 12:49 pm
Yesterday, Roger Roberts was one of many Liberal Democrat peers to take part in the Queen’s Speech debate. He’s sent us his speech on the treatment of refugees, an issue very close to his heart:
In the wide-ranging speeches, we had one great disappointment, and I am sure the Minister involved will know exactly what I am referring to; there has been no commitment at all to receiving the 20,000 Syrian refugees as promised by David Cameron. It is not there in the Queen’s Speech. Nor is there a commitment to increase the number of unaccompanied child refugees. When you think that in Europe there are still about 88,000 of these children by themselves, we have met no commitment whatever in the Speech that we are discussing this afternoon. It has been a great disappointment in that direction.
We are probably going to get another immigration Bill; we get one every Session. I am not sure what we are going to do in a two-year Session: will we get two or just one and a half? We are going to get new legislation, and every time we do it makes it more difficult for those who are vulnerable and those who wish to escape from total austerity to come here. We can promote many amendments when that new Bill comes. We can ask why asylum seekers are still refused permission to work for the first 12 months of their time in the United Kingdom. Is there any reason whatever? I cannot see any. Why, also, do we have legislation that permits 18 year-olds to be deported? Those who are deported are largely those who have had no access to legal advice. The Government could, quite easily I think, make a commitment that everyone who approaches 18 years of age shall at least have the benefit of top-rate legal advice.
There is one other thing I would like to see in the new immigration Bill. Do you know how much people get every week when they are applying? It is £36.95, and this has not increased at all in the past five or six years. Anything that we can do to uprate that to the present cost of living would be very welcome.
I have come across a poem by Warsan Shire of Somalia that describes the circumstances, and I shall quote part of it:
By David Warren | Published Wed 28th June 2017 - 11:10 am
I allowed my membership of the Liberal Democrats to lapse a while back but I took that decision without rancour.
My involvement had not been passive I stood for local council and campaigned vigorously in other elections.
I liked the party, still do but I just couldn’t live with the position it had taken on Brexit.
Another principled stand by yours truly, one of many over the years.
So as the General Election came upon us my personal focus was on the need to stop the Conservatives winning.
At the start of the campaign their arrogance and swagger was worse than ever and they are pretty bad at the best of times.
My election activity largely focused around the need to get a hung parliament which would then hopefully lead to some form of PR for future elections.
Like many other carers campaigners I wanted to see the future of adult social care high on the agenda, of course Theresa May did that for us with her dementia tax proposal.
A crucial moment in the campaign which I believe contributed in no small way to her losing her parliamentary majority.
On election night itself I stayed up hoping for Tory losses.
The social media campaign to get young voters registered, Corbyn mania and what I felt was a strong campaign by Tim Farron gave me hope.
By Karen Wilkinson | Published Sun 25th June 2017 - 12:55 pm
The key issue for me in the leadership debate is our strategy for the next election. My take is based on feedback from electors.
On the whole, our manifesto is sound (although I can’t help adding a quick pitch for the addition of the term time attendance policy for tourism constituencies & to exemplify our trust in people over government/commitment to family life). There are just two huge, key exceptions.
Ditch the referendum on the deal.
Nothing in recent history, from the AV referendum to Brexit to the Scottish Independence Reernedum, gives cause to trust referenda. The electorate had already learned that …
By Caron Lindsay | Published Wed 21st June 2017 - 10:28 am
As the Queen heads to Westminster and delivers a speech which will go something like “My Government is doing, well, not that much actually. Now that it has ditched the bonkers policy nobody liked in its manifesto, there’s just Brexit really. Oh, and lots of money to Northern Ireland.”
So, as the events in Westminster unfold, what would be your big idea for the Queen’s Speech. What one piece of legislation would you bring in?
I guess the obvious Lib Dem ones are PR and the Standardisation of Letterboxes. I’d like to see putting the International Code on the Marketing of Breastmilk …
Ruth Bright During the unrest in 2011 Simon Hughes made a powerful statement telling rioters to go home. It came from a place of profound respect for, and understanding of,...
John Reed This is such a disappointing announcement.
We must push to have the present system for pricing all electricity based on the cost of the most expensive, usual...
Peter Hirst I would add caring to bold and relevant. Getting a sympathetic ear at the end of a telephone help line is as important as an extra pound in your pay slip. Under...
Peter Hirst One of the more important issues that the electorate care about is how much political parties understand what matters to them. This varies from person to person...
Peter Hirst Inequality must be seen in the round. I appreciate living in the north-west because it gives me easy access to mountains such as in Snowdonia, The Lakes and Der...
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Brexit and summer holidays
The pine martens of Shropshire
The shame of Liverpool Labour councillors taking their allowances but not turning up to do the work
Ruth Bright 
John Reed 
Peter Hirst 