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Caron Lindsay

Today at Spring Conference

By Caron Lindsay | Published Sun 19th March 2017 - 8:00 am

The emergency motion up for discussion first thing this morning will have been decided by ballot of Conference goers. It’s likely that most people will be pretty bleary-eyed by this stage – especially those who have been at the Glee Club until stupid o’clock.

The main potential flashpoint of today is the debate on faith schools. This is another of those issues where liberal principles can lead you to either strongly held viewpoint. Conference will be offered three options on the way forward. You can read the arguments on both sides here and here.

The highlight of course is Tim Farron’s speech. It will be his pitch not to Lib Dem members, but to everyone who believes that the Government is on the wrong course on Brexit, to join us in our fight.

Here’s the full timetable.

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Caron Lindsay

Today at Spring Conference

By Caron Lindsay | Published Sat 18th March 2017 - 8:00 am

The Saturday of Spring Conference is very busy, with a packed training programme and fringe as well as debates in the hall. Don’t forget to grab your daily bulletin and make sure that you vote for the emergency motion you want to see debated by lunchtime.

The party will be talking about Brexit but because the situation was so fluid, the motion will only be published when we get to Conference as to do so before could have rendered it out of date.

The most controversial debate of the day will be on nuclear weapons. The policy paper produced by the Working Group recommends maintaining a nuclear deterrent while aiming for a global reduction in nuclear weapons. The arguments in favour of the motion and in favour of having no nuclear deterrent have been set out on this site  here by Tim Farron and here by David Grace respectively.

There’s a huge variety of fringe meetings. Some highlights are below.

Here is the full timetable for the day:

09.00–09.10: Opening of conference by Baroness Brinton
09.10–09.30: Report of Federal Conference Committee
Report of Federal Policy Committee
09.30–10.30: Policy Motion: A rational approach to harm reduction (Sex work policy paper)
10.30–11.15: Policy Motion: Tackling overcrowding in the prison system
11.15–11.35: Speech by Lynne Featherstone
11.35–12.40: Emergency motion or topical issue: Britain and the EU

12:40-14:20: Lunchtime fringe

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Zoe O’Connell

Federal Conference Committee Report

By Zoe O’Connell | Published Fri 17th March 2017 - 8:20 pm

Federal Conference Committee (FCC) met this afternoon to go through the amendments, emergency motions and topic issues submitted for spring conference. Thank you to all those who submitted items for consideration – unfortunately, the deadlines for spring conference are very tight compared to autumn, so we do not have time to give everyone the individual feedback on amendments and motions we usually would. The full text of selected amendments and emergency motions will appear in Conference Daily.

Emergency motions are selected by ballot and papers should be returned to the ballot box in the auditorium on Saturday morning. Full details will appear in Saturday’s Conference Daily.

In all, 16 amendments, 13 emergency motions/topic issues and 5 questions to committees were considered by FCC. With the exception of the titles of emergency motions, the summaries are my own so apologies if any errors have crept in. The amount of time for debating each motion is listed, as this is a good indication to the number of amendments we can debate. A 45 minute motion can realistically only have one debated amendment, whereas a 90 minute motion might have up to three.

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Stephen Harte

The emotions of constitutional change

By Stephen Harte | Published Wed 15th March 2017 - 12:24 pm

 

Here we go again – Scotland is (if Westminster grants a S30 Order) being treated to yet another bitter, divisive and emotional constitutional referendum where lies and spin will confuse one and all and we will likely end up with a narrow result that satisfies no one. What joy!

I voted No before.  This time we are told that circumstances have changed (thus the SNP and the hyper-nationalist Scottish Green Party are demanding the re-vote that they would have demanded whatever happened) and some of my LibDem friends say that Brexit means they will now vote Yes.

Willie Rennie promises to make an “emotional case for the Union”.  I find it hard to get any more emotional about staying with the Union then separating from it.  Where can a liberal find that emotional call?

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Paul Tyler

Some progress on party funding reform – comments please!

By Paul Tyler | Published Wed 15th March 2017 - 10:35 am

 

The adage “if you want to keep something secret, say it in the House of Commons” certainly extends to the Lords on Fridays, when Private Members Bills are taken.

However, our team made significant progress last week in pushing the government to take seriously their own manifesto commitment “to continue to seek agreement on a comprehensive package of party funding reform”.  We have been plugging away at this by whatever means possible, including by initiating a special Select Committee on party funding reform last year, and by introducing my Political Parties (Funding and Expenditure) Bill last week.  I opened the debate, and Chris Rennard and Ian Wrigglesworth both spoke too.  We received support also from Labour Peer Larry Whitty, and from the Chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Paul Bew.

For decades, Lib Dems have sought a cap on individual donations – to limit the auction of influence and access to government and senior political figures which now takes place.  In return, a limited element of public funding – linked to support in the country – would be needed to ensure the parties could continue their campaigning.

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What’s the REAL state of the parties?

By Brian Milnes and John Grout | Published Mon 13th March 2017 - 1:49 pm

Frequent Opinion Polls since May 2016 show one picture; Conservatives way ahead, Labour & Liberal Democrats suffering, UKIP hanging on.

But when we look at “Real Votes from Real People”, from a 310,000+ sample size, from 3 countries since May 2016, we get a much different picture:

 

Local government by-elections may not be translatable into General Election results, but they show a remarkably different position – and one that is much more attuned with feedback from the doorstep.

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Caron Lindsay

Inspiring Lib Dem Women: Jennie Rigg

By Caron Lindsay | Published Wed 8th March 2017 - 7:58 pm

Jennie Rigg is one of my favourite people on the planet. The former Chair of Calderdale Lib Dems is a plain-speaking, hilarious Yorkshire woman who has lit up the Lib Dem end of the blogosphere for getting on for a decade. She is one of these people who can express really complicated concepts that tie some up in knots in a way that the reader can really relate to. She comments regularly on here and is very good at explaining the barriers that women and people of colour and other marginalised groups face.

She made a brilliant speech at Conference in the social security debate last year blowing apart the arguments for the maintenance of some sort of sanctions regime.

I really have to think about it when I disagree with her because her instincts are liberal to her core. We have had some fairly robust arguments on these comparatively few issues but can go down the pub for a pint afterwards. Apart from lib demmy stuff, we both share a passion for our doggies, Doctor Who and gin.

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Caron Lindsay

Giving EU nationals the right to stay benefits us all

By Caron Lindsay | Published Wed 1st March 2017 - 4:47 pm

I’m feeling quite nervous this afternoon. The House of Lords is debating an amendment which would give EU nationals who have made their homes here the right to stay. The Government is expected to be defeated and I hope very much that this will be the case and that we won’t have the disgraceful scenes we saw on Monday when the so called opposition were whipped to reject an amendment on the single market.

For me, this is something very personal – and also a bit selfish. Like virtually everyone else, I have friends who are EU nationals. They live here. This is their home. I don’t want to see them used as bargaining chips. My neighbours are from Poland. I don’t want them to have any worries about whether they will be forced to uproot their lives and disrupt their daughter’s education.

Those things are important, but as many of you will know, my husband was seriously ill at the end of last year. He is making a good recovery thanks to the excellent specialist medical care he received. The surgeon who saved his life and who sped back into the hospital at dead of night when there was a problem to operate again is Italian. He’s the same surgeon, actually, who saved the life of Nicola Sturgeon’s father-in-law. His registrar is from Greece. The nurse who looked after him in ITU so skilfully was also Italian. I want them to have the right to live here unimpeded for two reasons. First of all, it’s the right thing to do. Secondly, I don’t want to lose their skills which make Edinburgh one of the best places for cardio-thoracic surgery in the UK. 

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Miranda Roberts

Committee Reports: Federal People Development Committee – 21 February 2017

By Miranda Roberts | Published Thu 23rd February 2017 - 2:34 pm

Tuesday night saw the inaugural meeting of the Party’s new Federal People Development Committee. This group oversees the Party’s work in the areas of Diversity, Membership and Training.

The committee was established by the Party’s Governance Review, with the idea being that the work in these three areas has a lot of overlap and would benefit from co-ordination.

This first meeting was mostly about us getting set up as a committee, electing our various Officers and representatives. To that end:

  • I was elected as Chair of the committee
  • Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett was elected as the Chair of the Diversity Sub-Committee
  • Sarah Green was elected as Chair of the Training Sub-Committee
  • Claire Halliwell was elected as Chair of the Membership Sub-Committee
  • Prue Bray was elected to serve as our Committee Secretary
  • Steve Jolly was elected as our Committee’s representative on the Federal Conference Committee

We discussed our future meeting dates and agreed that the four meetings the constitution sets as the minimum did not feel enough for a new committee with such a large remit.

We decided to hold an extra meeting before May, focusing on the committee’s strategic purpose, to explore how we could work as a committee, scope the different projects and ideas that committee members have and explore possible avenues of work. We felt it was important to add in this earlier meeting, since waiting until May to decide what to do felt too late to us. We were very conscious that the big membership surges happened in the summer months, meaning that those members will come up for renewal (or lapse) this summer, so we need to have engaged and activated them before that time arrives.

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Lord William Wallace

William Wallace writes a letter to a new member….

By Lord William Wallace | Published Mon 20th February 2017 - 12:00 pm

 

Dear New Member,

It’s been exhilarating to meet you and so many of your friends and fellows at meetings over the past few months.

After years of talking to small numbers of Liberal Democrat members in the corners of pubs or the living rooms of houses, packed meetings of interested and well-informed people warm the soul.  Some of the questions thrown at me display levels of expertise on specific policies well above what I’ve acquired; the only answer I could offer to the new member who asked what I thought we could learn from the Finnish school system was, “You tell me”.   I was invited to a meeting for new members in Yorkshire, some months ago, to talk about our party’s approach to foreign policy, to discover from the first three people I met that each of them had years of experience of working in countries that I had never visited.

The party organization is struggling with its limited resources to make good use of the expertise which many new recruits have brought us.  Some are already serving on policy working groups, some helpfully advising different parliamentary spokesmen, others are feeding in to shaping policies at regional level.  I look forward to meeting more new members at the Spring conference in York, including in the consultation sessions on Friday which provide the easiest opportunities for members to feed in ideas.

Many of your friends and fellow enthusiasts have piled in to Witney and Richmond, and some also to Sleaford, Copeland and Stoke – and found election campaigning a wonderful collective activity.  But can I say to you what I’ve said to the several university professors who have come to talk to me about helping the party they have just joined?  “Get out there and walk the streets, outside active election campaigns.  Deliver leaflets, and knock on doors.  You will learn a huge amount about the state of British politics and society; and it starts to make a difference to people who feel cut off from politics and political elites and will respond to activists who take an interest in their own concerns.”

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Lord William Wallace

William Wallace writes…Populism in the media

By Lord William Wallace | Published Mon 13th February 2017 - 11:55 am

Active Liberal Democrats should read the Daily Mail.  You need to know where issues that dominate the news have come from. Even more under this Conservative government than under Tony Blair, the Mail sets much of our political tone and agenda; it’s the newspaper from which Conservative constituency executives take their opinions, feeding back to MPs, ministers and No.10.

The BBC’s recent revelation that David Cameron tried to persuade Lord Rothermere that it was time for Paul Dacre to retire, after 25 years as editor, before the EU Referendum, illustrates how successive Prime Ministers attempt to cultivate the Mail while at the same time fearing it.  Its populist narrative is skilfully presented.  The vicious way in which it attacks those who challenge that narrative persuades its readers that they are on the right side, and that others are responsible for whatever goes wrong.

The Daily Mail narrative on the NHS has fed directly through to government policy.  Its campaign against ‘health tourism’, in which the picture of a Nigerian woman who had quadruplets while visiting Britain has appeared multiple times over the past year, has pushed the government into action; there is, after all, a real problem, though the Mail has exaggerated its extent and overall cost.  In parallel it has run a campaign against ‘lazy’ GPs who close their surgeries for half a day a week – also leading ministers to respond.  The deliberate implication of both of these has been that the NHS’s problems are caused by foreigners and lazy staff, not by lack of resources.  Indeed, one of the longest-running campaigns in the Mail has been about the ‘wicked’ denial of new cancer drugs by NICE, ln grounds of cost (David Cameron responded by setting up a special fund to underwrite a limited supply). Tthe Mail thinks more should be spent on these, without explaining to its readers where the extra money might come from.

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James Baillie

The Radical Association: Fighting for a bolder Lib Dem future

By James Baillie | Published Wed 1st February 2017 - 1:15 pm

Times are tough for liberals and liberalism internationally, and perhaps especially at the moment in the Anglosphere. It’s frustrating to be locked out of power, and to see our values attacked from all sides both at home and abroad. It’s miserable seeing the UK lurch towards a hard Brexit, and I hope that together we can fight against May’s love-in with the hardline authoritarian regime emerging across the Atlantic.

Even in the darkest and most confusing times, though, it’s important that we look to the future as well as fighting present battles.  That’s why I and others have been working on setting up the Radical Association, a new ginger group hoping to build innovative new policies and strategies for the Liberal Democrats to face the challenges of the 21st century. Global warming, increasing automation in the economy, cybercrime, building a more open & accessible society, coping with an ageing population, strengthening and revitalising local communities – these and more are all issues that need a wave of fresh liberal ideas to meet them and ensure we’re ready for the challenges that the future will bring.

We’ve now got to the stage where we’re ready to lay the groundwork and put together a formal organisational structure for the Radical Association so we can carry these goals forward. We’re planning to work right along the policy pipeline, from supporting policy research and discussion groups, through to working out how we can get bold, clear policies onto the conference floor, to helping the party campaign on new ideas and get them out into the country’s wider political debate. At last conference we were active in calling for a wider rethink of the party’s social security policy, and we’re committed to building on that and working on other areas in the months ahead and helping ensure members are presented with clear choices and big new policies on the conference floor and beyond.

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Zoe O’Connell

Federal Conference Committee Motions Report

By Zoe O’Connell | Published Wed 1st February 2017 - 11:45 am

Avid readers of Liberal Democrat Voice will already have seen Geoff Payne’s report on the results of this weekend’s Federal Conference Committee meeting. All those whose motions were not selected should now have received feedback, so we’re able to release the list of motions to be debated in March when the party gathers in York.

Although I have covered this before, a quick reminder of how FCC selects motions is probably helpful particularly as this is the first time I have included information on voting. Selection runs in rounds, with the first round consisting of an FCC member responsible for a particular policy area briefly introducing the motion and making a recommendation on inclusion on the agenda. After this, committee members discuss it and decide if it should be accepted or not. This usually involves a show of hands, although the decision is often clear following the debate and a lack of any objection to the recommendation. Even being very tough in round one, we always end up with more excellent motions left than can fit in the agenda, so the process is then repeated in subsequent rounds as necessary.

It is important to note that non-selection of a motion usually does not mean that FCC believes the topic unworthy of debate, although we are always wary of repeatedly debating the same few items over and over. Most motions end up not making it to conference due to lack of time, because of technical or drafting issues or because Federal Policy Committee already working on a policy paper in that area. Those who submitted motions will have been given more detailed feedback. The committee also can only select from motions that have been submitted to us!

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Report from the Federal Conference Committee

By Geoff Payne | Published Mon 30th January 2017 - 1:13 pm

(No, I’ve no idea what it means, either: Ed)

The Federal Conference Committee met for the first time of the new cycle over the weekend of 28th and 29th January 2017. This new committee that has been elected is due to serve for a three-year period.

Membership of the Federal Conference Committee

A number of new members have joined the committee. They include Robert Adamson, Victor Chamberlain, Nick Da Costa, Heidi Worth, Jennie Rigg, Susan Juned, and Alex Hegenbarth. We also welcomed back a few familiar faces.

The first substantive item on the agenda was the election of officers. Andrew Wiseman was re-elected as Chair of FCC and Zoe O’Connell as the Vice-Chair responsible for Conference Communications. I was re-elected Vice-Chair responsible for the General Purposes Sub-Committee (G.P.S.C.).

The following people were appointed to the General Purposes Sub-Committee: Qassim Afzal, Nick Da Costa, Jennie Rigg and Chris Maines. That committee deals with registration rates in the first instance, finances and budgets, stewards and eligibility for the concessionary party body rate.

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Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #466

By Caron Lindsay | Published Sun 29th January 2017 - 9:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen which is back after a much extended break. It never returned after the Summer holiday last year as my husband’s illness meant that I didn’t have time to do it. It nearly returned two weeks ago, but the broadband in my house stopped working. Anyway, it is back now, in a slightly different form and at a new time of 9pm.

This is our 466h round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere … Featuring the five (down from seven) most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (22 – 28 January, 2017), together with a hand-picked seven (to bring in a wider range of blogs) you might otherwise have missed. This week’s will include some earlier offerings that I thought you might like.

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 on telly – the highlights

By Caron Lindsay | Published Sun 29th January 2017 - 12:43 pm

Tim Farron is fast becoming the grown-up in the room in British politics. He speaks for many, across the Remain/Leave divide and is the strongest voice of opposition to Theresa May’s government – and Jeremy Corbyn’s sorry excuse for an opposition. In fact, we should stop referring to Labour as the opposition while they enable the worst government in my lifetime to wreak havoc on our economy and future prosperity.

Tim has been doing the media rounds this morning. He’s been interviewed by Andrew Marr and Sophy Ridge.

Now is the time for him to be in the form of his life – and he was. He answered the questions clearly and put our point of view very well. It helps when he is actually in the room rather than down the line, even if we miss out on the gorgeous Cumbrian scenery. Here are some of the highlights courtesy of the various Twitter feeds. You can see the whole Marr interview here from around 50 minutes in and you can read the transcript of the Sophy Ridge interview here on the Sky media website.

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Lord William Wallace

William Wallace writes…What should the Liberal Democrats be saying to the “left behind?”

By Lord William Wallace | Published Sun 22nd January 2017 - 9:40 am

What should the Liberal Democrats be saying to the ‘Left Behind’?  We’ve claimed a strong position as the voice of the 48%; but there are many among the 52% who are not illiberal at heart, and others who voted ‘Sod off!’ in the Referendum to London as much as to Brussels in their disillusion with politics and the distant elite.  People who live on partly-sold off Council estates, or in places built to house workers in factories that closed 30 to 40 years ago, where local services have been steadily cut back and jobs are hard to get to, low paid and insecure, have some justifiable reasons to feel resentful .

Theresa May has spoken about the ‘left behind’ at the Davos World Economic Forum, but said little about what an’ active state’ (yes, she has used that term) should do to help them. Donald Trump in his inauguration speech promised ‘the forgotten people’ from globalisation that they will now be remembered, but didn’t say what he would do to help them beyond putting up barriers to imports.  The right-wing media in Britain have portrayed their problems as mostly down to fecklessness and immigrants – taking their jobs and the social housing they want to claim, weighing down the NHS.  Labour is wavering over whether to give in to that narrative, or address more underlying problems.

But what do we want to say, consistent with our values, and without pandering to the ‘blame the East Europeans’ narrative?  Liberal Democrat peers have set up a working group to address this, to feed into party campaigning in ‘left behind’ areas.  The London-based media portrays the political choices for such voters as between Labour and UKIP (having forgotten the Lib Dem record in cities like Sheffield, Liverpool, Newcastle, Hull and elsewhere).  We know that Labour has already lost their trust, and that local campaigning has created new pockets of Liberal Democrat support, with encouraging local by-election results in recent months. Our group includes peers with local government experience in northern cities and neglected rural areas; and we are drawing on a number of reports on the social and economic conditions of England’s pockets of depression and deprivation.

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Caron Lindsay

What next with Trump vs the Media?

By Caron Lindsay | Published Sun 22nd January 2017 - 8:59 am

The first thing I read this morning was the Twitter feed of the BBC’s James Cook who spent yesterday following Donald Trump around as he gave a speech at the CIA.

We’ve all watched enough West Wing to know how the White House’s relationship with the media works. The Press Secretary briefs the press every day and takes questions.

It looks like things are changing:

This …

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: The hip-thigh bone theory of the world

By Tom Arms | Published Fri 20th January 2017 - 8:55 am

It is time to explain my hip thigh bone theory of the world.

The theory is based on the 1920s African-American  spiritual “Dem bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones.”

The ditty in turn was based on a Biblical passage in which a collection of dry bones reassemble themselves   before the astonished eyes of the prophet Ezekiel .

The foot-tapping, hand-clapping spiritual is a roof raiser in evangelical churches around the world. It is also a popular song in young children’s anatomy classes.

But to my mind, Its main value is as a perfect metaphor of how the  rapidly shrinking and interconnected world has become increasingly dependent on its constituent parts (or bones) working together.

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Paul Walter

Slithering headlong down the rabbit hole

By Paul Walter | Published Fri 13th January 2017 - 1:15 pm

Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end? “I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?” she said aloud. “I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think-“
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll

The latest Trump episodes really mark a drop down the rabbit hole. We were in “post-Truth” mode, but now we have switched over into an alternative reality.

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Jamie Dalzell

A fairer formula for schools: it’s not just about funding

By Jamie Dalzell | Published Mon 9th January 2017 - 12:24 pm

In the face of Brexit and a Trump Presidency, our communities face a period of crisis and uncertainty. We therefore must continue to focus attention on supporting and improving school’s here in the UK so that our young people are as well-equipped as possible to adapt to this rapidly changing world.

Aside from the distracting nonsense of Grammar Schools, the Government is pursuing ambitious reforms to the national schools’ funding formula. The second stage of their consultation was published on 14th December and, having campaigned for such reforms for several years, there are many aspects that I welcome. However there are also concerns surrounding the potential 8% real-term cuts that are being imposed nationally by 2019-20.

With all this in mind, school funding is likely to become the focus of debate in education, but, I believe, that we may end up further overlooking a far more important issue that is currently driving our education system into crisis: the understaffing of UK schools.

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Mary Reid

Sarah Olney’s maiden speech

By Mary Reid | Published Mon 19th December 2016 - 9:51 pm

Well, it has been a long time since we have been able to report on the maiden speech of a Liberal Democrat MP.

Sarah spoke today in the debate on the impact of Brexit on science and research. Until a few weeks ago she was working at the National Physical Laboratory, which lies just across the Thames from her Richmond Park constituency, so she has an insider’s view on the subject.

Here is her speech (taken from the rolling feed on Hansard which may be subject to correction):

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Caron Lindsay

What can we learn from the Federal election results?

By Caron Lindsay | Published Sun 18th December 2016 - 10:23 am

Yesterday, we learned who party members had chosen to represent them on the main Federal Committees.  These were the first elections held under one member one vote. Previously, only those who had been elected as Conference representatives by their local party could have a say in the direction of the party.

Congratulations to all those who were elected – and commiserations to those who weren’t.

From 2012, Daisy Cooper and Sue Doughty led a process which led to the biggest internal democratic reform in the party’s history. In 2014, Conference accepted their proposals to give every member a vote. We now have not far off twice as many members as we did back then in the last days of the coalition.

So how did these elections go, and what can we learn from them?

Who was elected?

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The Voice

Willie Rennie: Amazon must change its ways

By The Voice | Published Sun 11th December 2016 - 1:16 pm

Back in January, Willie Rennie called out both Amazon and Nicola Sturgeon over low wages and poor working conditions at the company’s Dunfermline depot. A couple of months later, he found himself banned from the premises after Amazon management cancelled a planned meeting with workers to discuss the issues.

Things haven’t got any better for the beleaguered employees at the depot. This week, the Courier revealed that some seasonal workers were sleeping out in tents in this weather to save the costs of commuting to and from the depot.

Then an undercover reporter working for the Sunday Times (£) wrote about her experience of working there:

In one case, a woman who spent three days in hospital with a kidney infection was docked two points, reduced to one on appeal, despite providing a hospital note.

And:

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Ed Fordham

Lessons from Lincolnshire

By Ed Fordham | Published Fri 9th December 2016 - 7:14 pm

Elections come and go, but the memories and the camaraderie live on.  The telling of old by-election stories and hearing them re-written over time and years is part of the fun.  But they can also be sad and hurtful.  

It has taken me years to get over the deep personal trauma that I now realise I suffered in the aftermath of years of campaigning to win Hampstead and Kilburn, and the impact of losing on a recount.  And I probably will never fully lose that trauma.  Yet I am sitting here now in the wreckage of a by-election HQ and I’m beaming.

Here in the HQ it’s down to just me and the agent Ian Horner. Even Ada our host has gone shopping, and yet neither of us feel sad.  There is a positive mood about what we achieved and a satisfaction about a job well done.

You all know the result. You had predicted it and over analaysed it before the count had even commenced so I won’t attempt to drag over it again here.  But  let me offer some thoughts that I think are important for the Liberal Democrats, and for me, issues we urgently need to address and tackle.

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Ed Fordham

Emotion, mischief, hard work and an absent friend: inside the Sleaford & North Hykeham campaign

By Ed Fordham | Published Wed 7th December 2016 - 8:55 am

Yesterday, sitting at my desk here in Sleaford and North Hykeham two of the best activists I have had the pleasure of working with over my 28 years in the party, were somewhat surprised to see me holding my head in my hands and crying.

The morning had been busy, too busy, the press have just noticed that this by-election is happening, and I have lots to do. Too much to do. In fact we are doing massive amounts and it’s going well. But I had a wobble and so went out delivering a round of leaflets or two. It’s cold here in Lincolnshire on these December mornings and it’s clears your head a little. But nonetheless I was thinking too much and making little progress. As I got back in the car and went to come back to the HQ we put the radio on and out came Snow Patrol’s Run.

Let me explain – my best mate Cllr Neil Trafford was killed in a car crash 8 years ago and at his memorial service – 8 years ago on 6 December 2008 (!) we played a recording of his sister Hannah singing Run.

Now this by-election in deepest Lincolnshire is going on and Neil is one of the people I would have turned to for help, advice and assistance. He would have loved it and been here and amusing us all, and he would have been causing mischief. As it is, I am causing enough mischief.

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Natalie Chindipha

January Training for Trainers – book your place now!

By Natalie Chindipha | Published Sat 3rd December 2016 - 11:55 am

The Diversity Team is delighted to announce that it will be organising a two-day Training for Trainers Course, from Saturday 7 – Sunday 8 January 2017 in London at Lib Dem HQ.  The course is designed to accredit new trainers who can deliver training courses on behalf of the party.

This course is part of our ongoing effort to increase the amount of diversity training (ethnic minority, gender balance and unconscious bias) available within the party, therefore priority will be given to those we who can demonstrate a commitment to diversity training.

The course will cover a range of essential skills including:

  • How to develop your presentation skills
  • How to deliver effective presentations
  • How to design engaging training material
  • How to give and receive feedback
  • Understanding how different people learn and absorb new information
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Caron Lindsay

How Brexit will harm our NHS and social care

By Caron Lindsay | Published Wed 30th November 2016 - 10:15 am

So, I’m drifting back to LDV slowly and gradually. My husband is now recovering from his heart surgery at home. It’s still quite incredible to think that only 10 weeks ago, he was enjoying his best health in years. All that changed with what we thought was Flu but turned out to be an infection in his heart which damaged one of his heart valves – a pretty complex one, too. My gratitude to the surgical team who sorted this out is unrivalled.

I have been more scared during this time than I have ever been in my life. That late-night phone call from Intensive Care when they said they needed to take him back into theatre was the point that I thought I really was going to crumble. The election of Donald Trump, terrifying as it is, 24 hours later was far from the most stressful thing I had to face that week.

The frenetic running about to and from the hospital and the intrinsic terror of the situation have now been replaced with a much less stressful but still very busy routine of drugging people, feeding people, cleaning, washing and other elements of domesticity which are a bit of a learning curve for me. My slovenly ways have been replaced by scrubbing everything in sight with anti-bacterial potions.

I tell Bob that I am basing my nursing style on Kathy Bates in Misery. He wasn’t really meant to agree that I was doing that well, but never mind.  Yesterday was a bit of a milestone when he had his first wee walk outside in 9 weeks.

I’m clearly going to be pre-occupied with looking after him for a while yet. The likelihood is that I’m still going to be a bit slow to get back to people  and not really engaged full time in the site until the New Year, so please continue to be patient with me.

My thanks go to the team who have had to do well more than they ever signed up for over the last nine weeks. Without them, there would have been no LDV at all. They have been absolutely brilliant.

I’ve observed much about our NHS and the stresses at its frontline. Bob had the most excellent care in hospital, but it was very clear to us how hard everyone was working and how there was so little give in the system. It’s a theme I will return to. For today, though, I want to think about the effects of Brexit on the NHS. The Leave Campaign’s jolly assertion that leaving the EU would mean £350 million a week extra for the NHS was consigned to history almost before the votes had been counted.

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , , | 14 Comments
Pete Shallcross

“Don’t forget the congregation…”

By Pete Shallcross | Published Wed 16th November 2016 - 7:41 am

As a long time supporter of the party, through good times and bad, I was, like thousands of others, finally spurred to join the party on 8 May 2015. My contact with the party had, until this point, been limited to the odd email initiated by donations made during the 2011 and 2014 referenda. The tone of these communications was correctly pitched and gave potential and actual supporters plenty of good reasons to lend the party their vote – I can’t say the same about the (particularly electronic) communication with party members.

Confession time; I haven’t been at all active since …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , | 24 Comments
Lucy Nethsingha

Make your views known to the Education Policy Working Group

By Lucy Nethsingha | Published Tue 15th November 2016 - 8:30 am

The Education Policy Working Group had a number of useful evidence sessions. We have heard from the teaching unions, representatives of the exam boards, academics and charities, and from researchers and leaders in think tanks.

There have been a number of themes which have emerged from these conversations as key areas where the working group should focus attention. There has also been a remarkable degree of unanimity from those giving evidence on the key problems facing education, although solutions are less easy to find!

Our first session was focused on the area of teacher recruitment and retention. It is …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | 29 Comments
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