Tag Archives: featured

Lord William Wallace

William Wallace writes: How should liberals mark VE Day

By Lord William Wallace | Wed 23rd April 2025 - 11:55 am

Once the local elections are over, commemoration of the 80th anniversary of VE Day on May 8th – the end of the second world war – will provide a focus for public attention and local celebrations.  Many of us will be caught up in ceremonies, street parties or receptions.  I will be singing in a commemorative concert in Westminster Hall (with Mike German, Joan Walmsley and 100 others in the Parliament Choir; do listen to it, broadcast on Classic FM).  

The government and the media will want to make this a patriotic occasion.  What additional twist should Liberal Democrats add to this?  I suggest that we should emphasise what Britain and its American ally declared they were fighting the war for: for political and democratic values, for an open international order and for social democracy at home – all values that are now being challenged by President Trump in the USA and by populists in Britain and in other democratic states.

I’ve just re-read President Roosevelt’s ‘Four Freedoms’ speech, and the Atlantic Charter that he and Winston Churchill signed on a warship off Newfoundland in August 1941.   Together these set out the shared aims for which the UK and the USA fought the war.  Roosevelt’s speech to Congress on January 6th 1941 declared that:

 We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression–everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way–everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want–which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear–which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor–anywhere in the world. …

The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

Five months before, Roosevelt and Churchill had signed the ‘Atlantic Charter’ – drafted by the British, revised by the Americans – which set out their shared aims in the war.   ‘…their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other; they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned; … they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement and social security;….’

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The Voice

Christine Jardine requests meeting with Minister over LGBTQ+ rights

By The Voice | Fri 18th April 2025 - 3:43 pm

Official portrait of Christine Jardine @HouseofCommons/Roger HarrisLib Dem Women and Equalities Spokesperson Christine Jardine has written to Women and Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson to ask for an urgent meeting to address the implications for the LGBTQ+ community in the wake of this week’s Supreme Court judgement.

On social media, Christine said:

I am increasingly disappointed that the concerns of the #LGBTQ+ community over what the Supreme Court judgement means for them are not yet being addressed. I have written to the Government asking them to make clear how trans and non binary rights will be protected.

In her letter, she asks that before any decisions are made, trans and non binary people are fully comsulted. She said:

I therefore urge your government to bring forward urgent guidance on how existing legislation will protect those rights, whether fresh legislation is envisaged and how the ruling’s practical implications will be resolved.

This must include significant steps to provide trans and non-binary people with the reassurance they deserve. To do this, the guidance must ensure rights that trans people have freely used for decades are not overturned.

These steps should also include open consultation with trans and non-binary communities, to better understand the ruling’s impact and whether any further legislative or policy change is needed to ensure that everyone’s rights are protected.

The full text of her letter is below.

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Chris Northwood

We have just entered a civil rights emergency

By Chris Northwood | Fri 18th April 2025 - 1:19 pm

As the shockwave of Wednesday’s bombshell Supreme Court decision has landed, we are now seeing the rapid erosion of some civil liberties in the UK. Although the court’s decision itself ruled on a fairly narrow part of Equalities Law, we are now seeing huge confusion as people pore over the full implications of the ruling and some seem to capitalise to restrict the rights of trans people, without regard of the side effects on the wider LGBT community, or women.

We have now seen initial responses from people like the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission Baroness Falkner, which appear to be taking a worst case interpretation of the ruling which does nothing but erode hard fought rights for trans people, claiming that we should be excluded from spaces we have existed in without issue for decades.

The British Transport Police have been fast off the mark to change their policies regarding strip searching of trans people. Male police officers can now strip search women if they believe they are trans (regardless of what genitalia that person might actually have). As a councillor I have seen officers in my council take weeks at the fastest to fully evaluate the impact of changes like this before introducing them, so find it impossible to believe that this policy has been introduced as a result of careful consideration of the implication of the ruling given the speed at which it has been done. It is clear that systemic transphobia remains embedded high in many public institutions, which are now rushing to bring in policies which harm vulnerable trans women.

I have no doubt that we will see more transphobic policies introduced under the guise of this ruling, rather than as a result of any careful consideration of the implication of it. These policies will hurt not only trans people, but be harmful for society in general as an erosion of liberty. Women in particular will be hurt by these decisions, shamefully championed by transphobic hate groups which masquerade as “women’s rights” campaigners, when inevitably authorities may make a judgement about their sex which turns out to be wrong. This has happened in the US through other trans-exclusionary definitions of women in bathroom bans. Legal recourse after the fact for redress is no compensation, and will remain open only to those with the pockets to fund it.

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Mark Pack

Mark Pack writes: The biggest prize in May’s local elections

By Mark Pack | Mon 14th April 2025 - 10:52 am

Lib Dems in sunshine with Mike Ross, Mark Pack and Shaffaq MohammedThere are hundreds of important prizes at stake for us in the May local elections.

Wards where we are standing our first candidate in years. Wards where winning would give us our first breakthrough in an area. Wards where winning would make us the main opposition on the council. Wards where winning could give us leadership of the council for the first time. Wards where winning would cement our record in power locally.

But perhaps the biggest prize at stake for the Liberal Democrats is one that has never been on offer before: the new Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority Mayor.

It brings together two areas with impressive local Liberal Democrat teams: the Hull team that took power from Labour even while the Conservatives were in power in Downing Street, and the East Riding team that has ridden an impressive run of by-election wins to be a growing political force locally.

There is important political power at stake to improve the lives of residents in the area.

For the party more widely too there is the chance to show our relevance in northern England, to get a new Liberal Democrat in important local and regional media markets and to show how we can win against Labour.

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Vince Cable

Bullied bullies and the New World Order

By Vince Cable | Sun 6th April 2025 - 2:03 pm

It is a common trait of bullies that they resort to self-pity; claiming to have been bullied themselves. Yet such psychopathology is found not only in the school playground but in the affairs of nations.

Putin’s narrative justifying the invasion of a peaceful neighbour and attendant war crimes draws heavily on a history of post-Soviet Russia being taken advantage of by the West. When China behaves badly it is apt to invoke its own ‘century of humiliation’. The rulers of a newly confident India hark back to past conquests by Muslim invaders to justify persecuting religious minorities. The Balkans and the Middle East continue to suffer the trauma of bullied bullies who excuse themselves in appeals to their own past suffering.

But the USA? Taken advantage of by the world? Exploited and abused by cheaters; scavengers; plunderers; pillagers; rapists. Really? Trump is a smart politician and seems to have found in the MAGA crowd a deep vein of self-pity for all the unfairness heaped on America: ungrateful. free-riding Europeans; devious Asians who have stolen America’s industry; invading Latinos; even, the dastardly Canadians. 

Many countries nurse a mixture of pride and guilt about their history, and their identity. The former colonial powers, like the UK, have had to accept being thrown out of their colonies. Germany and Japan had to come to terms with comprehensive defeat. For sure, the USA has had to come to terms with the genocide of its native inhabitants and slavery. But it can also boast vast achievements: winner of the Cold War; a widely admired ‘shining city on the hill’; creator of the institutions and rules which led to 70 odd years of remarkable global progress; and, still, the undisputed economic and technological leader of the Western world. So why is the Trump bully boy so sorry for himself? 

One grievance is partly justified but has nothing to do with the trade war which Trump has unleashed:  the long-standing failure of America’s European and Asian allies to pay their share of common defence.  After all, the USA has taken on the risk of nuclear incineration which could conceivably be triggered by some miscalculation or mischief made by Europeans in the Baltic or the Balkans.  Trump is right to insist that if Europeans won’t pay up, they can’t expect continued protection.  But, typically ungracious, he fails to acknowledge that British, Danish, Dutch and other Europeans have given their lives supporting the Americans in their questionable wars of choice in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Boycott!

By Tom Arms | Sat 5th April 2025 - 9:52 am

It’s time to boycott American goods and services. Buy British. Buy European. Buy Chinese. Buy anything except American.

Non-Americans hit by Trumpian tariffs cannot influence American politics through the ballot box. But they can vote with their pocket books. And a point-blank refusal to buy American products would have more of an impact than retaliatory tariffs that make those products more expensive.

Individuals are already turning their backs on American merchandise.  Last month Europeans registered their displeasure with Donald Trump and his billionaire backer Elon Musk by cutting Tesla sales by 50 percent. Others have shown their disapproval by refusing to buy Coca-Cola or taking their coffee breaks at Café Nero instead of Starbucks.

But these are haphazard kneejerk boycotts which may give the individual a momentary self-righteous glow. They will have little if any effect on the Washington policymakers. What is needed is a coordinated effort that organises pickets, produces literature and stuffs it through letter products. A well-oiled machine with foot soldiers, a PR team and a website that identifies products and services to boycott and names non-American alternatives and goes on to monitor success.

A boycott would also help the re-ordering of trade patterns away from the United States. If people are not buying American goods than they are buying goods from other countries. The businesses in those countries will quickly realise the opportunity and divert their supply lines accordingly

The government can’t do the job of organising a boycott. Not because it is incapable of the task but because it would be politically irresponsible. A successful government-organised boycott would almost certainly result in retribution from the ever-mercurial Trump. It would be in character for Trump to retaliate with restrictions in vital areas such as intelligence gathering or weapons procurement.

No, what is needed is an existing political machine that has significant representation in parliament but is separate from the government. There is no time to re-invent the wheel.   The public requires an existing political party whose leader has already firmly staked out a firm anti-Trumpian position and called for a coordinated response to tariffs and other unacceptable behaviour by the current tenant of the White House.

What is needed is for Britain’s Liberal Democrats—led by Sir Ed Davey—to organise a proper boycott of American products. The government can’t do it. The Tories won’t do it. That leaves the Liberal Democrats – with a leader committed to doing something—with the opportunity and the responsibility.

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Caron Lindsay

William Wallace writes..British Politics in a national and global emergency

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 2nd April 2025 - 1:55 pm

Martin Wolf, as so often, had it right in the Financial Times the other week.  He argued that in the multi-headed crisis we now face, the proper response of government is to tell the voters that this is both a national and a global emergency and that national economic and fiscal policies will have to take these exceptional circumstances into account.  The impact of Trump’s tariffs on the global economy could plunge us all into a deep recession.

Labour knew when they came into office that Russia’s attack on Ukraine had raised difficult questions about replacing stocks of equipment and munitions and increasing Britain’s defence capabilities.  They also had a good idea of how far the Conservatives in office had run down public investment and juggled financial figures to avoid recognising that state revenues did not match public spending needs.  It seems however that full realisation of the depth of the investment and income deficit only came when they were in office, well after they had boxed themselves in by promising not to raise any of the three main sources of taxable revenue.  And they had not predicted the third shock, which has hit them six months after taking office: the impact of Trump’s second presidency on the global economy, on transatlantic relations and on the conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East. 

These three crises together have undermined Labour’s growth strategy, and are likely to force it to choose unwillingly both further spending cuts and higher taxes.  Yet here, as elsewhere, Labour remains timid and uncertain in making hard choices, let alone in persuading the public to accept them.  Opinion polls show that most voters don’t yet support increased spending on defence, because they don’t yet see the Russian attack on Ukraine as directly threatening Britain.  Most aren’t happy about cuts in welfare, but are content for overseas aid and other budgets to be squeezed to provide some of the funds needed rather than higher taxation.  

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Mike Ross

We can win in Hull and East Yorkshire. But only with your help 

By Mike Ross | Wed 2nd April 2025 - 11:55 am

Lib Dems in sunshine with Mike Ross, Mark Pack and Shaffaq Mohammed

If you were at our recent Spring conference, you will hopefully have heard all about my campaign to become the first Mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire. 

Last weekend, we were joined by Party President Mark Pack in Hessle, East Yorkshire, to formally launch our campaign for the mayoralty. 

It was an honour to be joined by Lord Pack and by so many activists, both from across the region and further afield, such as Lord Shaffaq Mohammed and a team from Sheffield. We’ve also had a visit from Ed Davey and many front-bench MPs. 

It’s clear the momentum is with us here, and it’s clear that local people want to send the Labour Government a message on 1st May. 

But we must not be complacent. The region is vast, comprising the city of Hull with the mostly rural East Riding, which spans almost 2,500 square kilometres, with hundreds of thousands of people registered to speak to. We must deliver to and speak with as many people as possible, as many times as possible, between now and 1st May. 

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The Voice

Watch: Daisy Cooper respond to the Spring Statement

By The Voice | Wed 26th March 2025 - 11:09 pm

Watch our Treasury Spokesperson Daisy Cooper respond to the Spring Statement:

The text is below:

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George Cunningham

No time to waste – Block a tsunami of far-right financing!

By George Cunningham | Wed 26th March 2025 - 8:00 am

In December 2024, Elon Musk planned to donate US$100 million to Reform UK via one of his British companies, an amount of money which would have swamped our electoral system. After falling out with Nigel Farage, he now seems to be expressing an interest to back an alternative to Reform UK.

However, the possibility of such a huge donation – which would turn British politics upside down – does not seem to sufficiently worry the Labour government which – no hurry – only intends to introduce legislation for some limited election financing reform in 2026. 

But now, potentially outflanking current UK electoral Law, we have the trans-Atlantic arrival on our shores of a newly-minted far-right Great British PAC (Political Action Committee) (which claims to be centre-right but its intention seems anything but once you read the website).

As stated in an accompanying article,  the PAC’s mission is said to be “resolutely British: to unite the right, fortify it, and prepare it to govern by 2029” when they would indulge in “torching EU laws, axing 400+ bloated quangos and NGOs, restoring judicial accountability, and building a new cadre of patriotic leaders through nationwide training academies.”

An “Operation Shield” will, in the meantime, mount “robust legal challenges and procedural interventions to halt the implementation of legislation that undermines Britain’s sovereignty, economy, and traditional values”. This would be coupled once in power with an “Ultimate Repeal Act” which would introduce “a comprehensive legislative package designed to roll back the layers of bureaucratic overreach and damaging regulations introduced by this socialist Labour government.” 

Now where have I heard something like that before? 

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Matthew Ma

ALDC’s By-Election report – 13 March 2025

By Matthew Ma | Fri 14th March 2025 - 8:12 pm

We take a breather this week as there are only 2 principal council by-elections held across England and Scotland. Both seats are held by their respective parties: Lib Dems the seat in Devon and Cornwall and the SNP in Scotland. 

In the Lib Dem defence, Cllr Fabian King stood out from the four candidates as the clear first choice for residents in Exe Valley, East Devon DC. The seat in was last contested in by only us and the Tories in the 2023 locals, but when compared to 2021, similarly a 4-way race, our vote share actually grew by over 7%. Congrats to Cllr Fabian and the team for holding the seat!

East Devon DC, Exe Valley
Liberal Democrat (Fabian King): 256 (44.0%, -26.5%)
Conservative: 137 (23.5%, -6.0%)
Reform: 135 (23.2%, new)
Labour: 54 (9.3%, new)

For the Scottish by-election, Oliver Ferrario stood in the Broxburn, Uphall & Winchburgh and managed to grow the Lib Dem first preference votes. The SNP was elected at stage 7 of counting, who beat second place Labour by 22 votes. Thank you to Oliver for flying the Lib Dem flag.

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Lucy Nethsingha

We can start to improve social care by tackling attitudes towards migrants

By Lucy Nethsingha | Wed 12th March 2025 - 11:12 am

If ever there’s an issue – or a sub-section of a broader issue – that sums up the sense that the UK is broken, even eight months after a new government was supposed to set a new direction, it’s social care.

The crisis in social care has been recognised for decades, but successive governments have failed to tackle it, and it’s getting rapidly worse. This is bad enough on its own, but it has two serious knock-on effects: it reduces the effectiveness of the NHS as it cannot release from hospitals some patients who are fit to leave but have nowhere to go; and it further drags down the reputation of local government, which doesn’t have the resources to deal with social care and sinks ever lower in the public’s estimation. Add the effects of Brexit, Covid, the cost-of-living crisis and a toxic debate on immigration, and you see why the situation with social care is worse now than it has ever been.

So what do we do? Well, a lot of money would help – most solutions to the social care problem require money, but, let’s face it, the kind of public spending that just isn’t feasible at the moment. So we have to look in other directions.

There have been four major shocks to the social care system in recent years: Covid, the cost-of-living crisis, Brexit, and Britain’s attitude towards immigration. The first two are factors largely outside our control. We can’t undo the loss of so many NHS and care staff due to the impact of Covid, and the cost of living crisis, coupled with repeated rises to the Real Living Wage and NI rates for employers, has sent the cost of staff rocketing, with many care companies struggling to compete for permanent staff and often forced to pay high wages to agency personnel.

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Duncan Brack

A distinctive defence niche for the Lib Dems to seize

By Duncan Brack | Mon 10th March 2025 - 10:35 am

In the last couple of weeks, policy on defence has suddenly moved centre-stage – to the point where even Lib Dem Voice has an article about it! The support given to Ukraine by our parliamentary party is no less than one would expect, but perhaps we should look a little deeper, as there’s an idea for making defence spending more effective which the Liberal Democrats are ideally placed to champion.

Much political and media attention is focused on the need to spend more on defence as a percentage of GDP. Starmer realised the significance of this and the need to act urgently ahead of his visit to the White House. He shifted from his 2024 manifesto position of 2.5 per cent ‘when resources allow’ to 2.5 per cent from 2027, with funding coming from reductions in international development assistance. 

But we need to be clear on what the money will buy. What capabilities does the UK need? Also, how do we ensure value for money – maximising the benefit from each pound, both in terms of defence capability but also as a contribution to UK jobs and economic growth, rather than US imports?

Currently the UK’s defence, intelligence and security arrangements are effectively joined at the hip with the US. Our nuclear deterrent is supplied by the US. Our intelligence comes largely from the US through the Five Eyes network, led by the US. Much of our kit is purchased from the US and our command and control is dependent on US technology. 

So a pressing question is whether we now need to establish our own defence capability independent of the US. In the short term, this may be difficult – hence the need to maintain a relationship with President Trump. But in the medium term, and particularly in how the UK uses its increased defence budget, there is an urgent need to move away from US dependence, as the last few weeks have underlined.

We could attempt to do this on a UK-only basis. Or we could attempt it through much greater cooperation and integration across Europe. While grateful for European support, the Ukrainians have experienced at first hand the difficulties of fighting a war using what they have described as a ‘military zoo’. The EU has 12 types of battle tank, while the US has one.

This, then, is the opportunity. At a time when the UK and its European partners need to step up expenditure on defence when resources are limited, it is vital that the extra money is spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. Crucially, if the UK is to realise economies of scale and interoperability and have the ability to act without relying on the US, then Europe’s military capabilities must be integrated much more closely. We need to create a single European defence industry capable of supplying our needs, ensuring European control of the technology, and ensuring that the economic benefits, including jobs, are shared fairly with our partners on this side of the Atlantic.

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Chris Bowers

What would Paddy do?

By Chris Bowers | Sat 8th March 2025 - 2:30 pm

Image of Paddy Ashdown with words "What would Paddy do?"Bringing the party’s first leader back to life – in a modern-day cause

Six years after his premature death at age 77, Paddy Ashdown is making a comeback in the interests of the party’s immediate future.

Well, not really. But Paddy’s name does adorn a new publication from the Yorkists, a group of party activists keen for the Lib Dems to have a stronger public identity. What would Paddy do? is ostensibly a submission to the party’s policy review, the one chaired by Ed Davey and Eleanor Kelly that will report later this spring and propose motions to federal conference in September. But it’s really a discussion paper about where the Lib Dems need to go, given that the run-in to the 2029 general election is likely to take place on various shifting sands.

Despite its formulation, the title of the Yorkists’ submission is not an attempt to second-guess what Paddy Ashdown would do in the current circumstances, but to invoke the spirit of a political colossus who understood the person-in-the-street and was willing to take bold and counterintuitive stances. His stand-out policy was a penny on income tax to fund a boost to education, the tax rise deliberately ring-fenced to make it more palatable to voters (if indigestible to Treasury mandarins), but he also went against the Zeitgeist in 1989 when he called for all Hong Kong citizens with British nationality to be allowed to live here.

Consequently, what the Yorkists are feeding into the policy review addresses nine policy areas, combining immediate pragmatic proposals with thinking outside the box and challenging today’s Zeitgeist. Defence is a fast-moving topic, but the main call in What would Paddy do? is for cooperation among Europe’s states so money spent on defence goes further. It also urges efforts to tackle housing shortages to focus not simply on new building targets but on a package of measures that includes stipulating the right kind of dwellings to be built and accompanying land and taxation measures to stop starter homes becoming boltholes for the urban rich.

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Mike Clancy

The Independent View: Why Lib Dems should support the Employment Rights Bill

By Mike Clancy | Sat 8th March 2025 - 12:30 pm

When people think of the priorities of the Liberal Democrats, they may not immediately think of employment rights, compared to the focus on health and care, or on Europe. But reading last year’s manifesto, the degree of attention paid to this issue would surprise many. The manifesto that delivered such a resounding result for the party included a commitment to ensure “the highest possible standards” of labour protection, alongside individual measures on zero hours contracts, sick pay, and more.

Such language isn’t a surprise to me or to the trade union I lead. As a politically independent union, Prospect has a long history of working with Liberal Democrats, and we know that concern for worker’s rights isn’t confined to one corner of the political spectrum. That is why I am confident that the Liberal Democrats, and especially Lib Dem peers, will play a positive role in the next stages of the Employment Rights Bill.

The Bill has clearly been the subject of considerable commentary, and the number of amendments reflects the extensive discussion that has taken place between government, business and trade unions. At its heart though, the Bill remains a vehicle for tackling some of the worst abuses in our labour market, guaranteeing individual and collective rights, and setting us back on a path to a high growth and high productivity economy based on positive employment relations. All of these aims fit squarely within the Liberal Democrat tradition, as does the way that the Bill assists with the immediate challenge we face in health and care which is rightly the party’s priority.

The headlines here will of course be about the way the Bill seeks to tackle our broken sick pay system which was horribly exposed by the Covid pandemic, and the move towards solving the workforce crisis in social care by introducing a new Fair Pay Agreement. This is a necessary, though clearly not sufficient, step towards fixing this broken system and I know Lib Dems will continue to campaign on this issue.

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Caron Lindsay

Happy International Women’s Day!

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 8th March 2025 - 11:20 am

Today is International Women’s Day, a day to celebrate the inspirational women we know and to recognise that we still have a long way to go to achieve equality for half the population in almost every aspect of our national and international life.

This year’s theme is For ALL women and girls: Rights, Equality, Empowerment. With women’s rights under threat across the world from Afghanistan to the USA, that could not be more appropriate.

When I think of inspirational women, if I didn’t mention my sister, Honor, who celebrates her 50th birthday this week, she would kill me. You can read the soppy post I wrote about her on my own blog here.   She has always been one to demolish barriers, achieve the seemingly impossible and always make us laugh while she’s doing it.

My mother was the one who inspired all of us. I grew up in the 70s, when women often lost their jobs, even in the Civil Service, when they got married, and almost certainly when they got pregnant. My mum ran her own business in Inverness and was a great role model of achievement and independence.

In the Lib Dems, I am surrounded by brilliant women who inspire me every day. If I started to list then all, I’d still be here next International Women’s Day. This year, though, we can celebrate our largest ever contingent of women MPs, 44% of our parliamentary party.  We should also celebrate the huge contingent of women campaigners, agents and organisers who built their campaigns.

How many can you spot in this official Commons photograph?

Here’s Susan Murray, our MP for Mid Dunbartonshire:

Lib Dem Women,  the party’s official organisation representing women, say, on Instagram:

Ed Davey said on Twitter:

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NewsHound

WATCH: Ed on Pod Save the UK

By NewsHound | Wed 5th March 2025 - 3:45 pm

Ed Davey appeared on the most recent episode of Pod Dave the UK, talking to Coco Khan.

Watch his 13 minute interview here.

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Tom Arms

The End

By Tom Arms | Sat 1st March 2025 - 7:00 am

February 28, 2025 may well go down in history as the day that the Western Alliance ended and the world was suddenly thrown into an unknown future by a White House bully and his initialled sidekick.

The undynamic duo’s treatment of the president of a country which has sacrificed thousands upon thousands of lives in the cause of the protection of the West shamed the United States and countries who have been in alliance with America.

“Say thank you. Say thank you,” shouted J.D. Vance when he should have been thanking Zelensky for the ultimate sacrifices his countrymen and women have made.

“You are not showing any respect,” said Donald Trump, sounding more like a mafia don then the leader of the Free World. It was draft dodger Trump who should have been respecting wartime leader Zelensky who has—against all odds—held out against the Russian war machine for three years.

Several times Zelensky tried to say thank you and explain his position, but each time he was shouted down by Vance and/or Trump.

At one point Trump pursed his lips shook his head back and forth and repeated in a childishly petulant mocking voice: “I don’t want a ceasefire. I don’t want a ceasefire.”

Again, Zelensky tried to explain that he wants an end to the war but that any ceasefire must come with security guarantees because Putin has broken every ceasefire, treaty and agreement that Ukraine has negotiated with the Russian dictator.

Zelensky flew to Washington to sign a deal which would hand over a major chunk of his country’s mineral rights. Trump said the rare earths that American companies would mine was compensation for the aid that America has given Ukraine. Zelensky agreed to that but also wanted assurances that included in the deal would be future security guarantees. A deal which gave away billions worth of mineral rights in perpetuity without protecting Ukrainian territorial integrity was worthless.

But Trump and Vance were determined to secure the rights and at the same time withdraw American support and bully Zelensky into effectively surrendering to Russia. And it was done before a television audience of billions in what appeared to be an attempt to humiliate the Ukrainian leader. The result was possibly the most disgraceful scene in diplomatic history.

European leaders, Democrats and officials from the first Trump administration seemed to regard it as just that.

John Bolton, Trump’s former National Security Adviser, said on X: “Trump and Vance have declared themselves to be on Russia’s side in the Russo-Ukraine war, This is a catastrophic mistake for America’s national security. And let’s be clear: Trump and Vance now personally own that policy. It is not the view of a majority of Americans of either or no political party.”

>H.R. McMaster another former national security advisor in the first Trump administration, said it is  “impossible to understand” why Trump and Vance “seem determined to put more pressure on President Zelensky while they seem to be coddling Putin—the person who inflicted this terrible war in Ukraine.”

Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a post on X said the “outrageous display” from Trump and Vance was “disgraceful” and “downright un-American.”

French president Emmanuel Macron said: “We should respect those who have been fighting since the beginning,”

“Ukraine, you’ll never walk alone,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said via X. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said, “Ukraine, Spain stands with you.” Friedrich Merz, the likely incoming German leader, also said he stands with Zelensky before adding that the “aggressor and victim in this terrible war” must never be confused. Top diplomats for the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland issued similar messages of support for Kyiv and the Ukrainian president.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen praised Zelensky for his “dignity” and said the bloc will continue working with him “for a just and lasting peace.”

Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said: “Estonia’s support for Ukraine remains unwavering. It is time for Europe to step up. We do not need to wait for something else to happen; Europe has enough resources, including Russia’s frozen assets, to enable Ukraine to continue fighting,”

The diplomatic meltdown at the White House comes as European leaders—including Zelensky—are preparing to meet in London on Sunday to discuss their next moves in the Ukrainian imbroglio. Host Sir Keir Starmer sees Britain as bridge between Europe and America. The problem is that Trump and Vance appear to be intent on burning that bridge.

Here is the transcript of Trump, Zelensky, and Vance’s contentious exchange. It has been edited for length and clarity.

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Caron Lindsay

Ed: This is thuggery from Trump and Vance

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 28th February 2025 - 9:58 pm

Well. There’s a danger to thinking that Donald Trump can’t get any worse. He will inevitably disappoint you by sinking even lower.

Tonight’s row with Zelensky in the Oval Office was a case in point. It was always going to be a set-up for the brave Ukrainian leader but I don’t think any of us had quite anticipated the appalling scenes we saw. How he managed to handle himself with such calmness and dignity in the face of that barrage is beyond me.

One of many lowlights from Trump was him saying that he couldn’t condemn Putin because he couldn’t slag him off and then bring him in to a deal. But it was fine for him to call Zelensky a dictator? A fact he seemed to have forgotten when pressed on it yesterday by the BBC’s political editor Chris Mason.

It seems very much like it’s Trump and Putin vs Europe now. Who would have thought that we would need to increase defence spending to defend ourselves FROM the US.

I grew up during the Cold War. I was born after those 13 days in 1962 when everyone was terrified that the Cuban Missile Crisis would bring about a nuclear war. While there was a sort of perpetual anxiety, it was at least relatively stable. There was nothing as unpredictable as a US President who can be nice as pie one minute and as nasty as you can get the next.

Donald Trump has been in office for 39 days and so far it’s been much, much worse than I had feared. I hadn’t had “Mar – a – Lago on Gaza” and while we knew he was going to throw Zelensky under the bus, I don’t think anyone expected tonight’s scenes.

While I know that Keir Starmer is doing his best, I felt like there weren’t enough vomit emojis in the world last night to describe the camaraderie in the White House. It was just really uncomfortable. And the contrast with tonight is still making my blood run a bit cold.

Ed Davey has been quick to show support for Zelensky. He said:

This is thuggery from Trump and Vance, plain and simple. They are bullying the brave true patriot Zelensky into accepting a deal which effectively hands victory to Russia. Unless the UK and Europe step up, we are facing a betrayal of Ukraine.

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Victor Chamberlain

How we’re using our alternative Council budget to take the fight to Labour

By Victor Chamberlain | Sun 23rd February 2025 - 10:53 am

I cannot recall a government that has lost its sheen so quickly. Let down after let down, disappointment after disappointment. Winter Fuel Payments, keeping the two child benefit cap, kicking social care into the long grass, betraying WASPI women and enough freebies and scandals to match the Tories! Just seven months in and already the resentment towards this Labour government is palpable on the doorstep.

Here in Southwark, where we are now one of the top Liberal Democrat challengers to a held Labour seat in the country, we are used to being let down by Labour. For 15 years they have controlled the council, and they have been mired in housing scandals, delivered poor service for residents, and let crime and anti-social behaviour spiral out of control. Content with blaming us, the Tories, or frankly anyone who isn’t the Labour party, they have finally run out of excuses. 

We’re using our alternative budget to show that politics is about choices, and only Liberal Democrats are making the right calls for our communities. 

The cost of living remains high, and locally and nationally Labour are doing nowhere near enough to support those who are choosing between eating and heating. That’s why we are, once again, offering bespoke support for those who need it most, by effectively freezing council tax for the poorest, and putting more money into our local Cost of Living Fund. 

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David Gray

How do we deal with this epidemic of Nazi salutes?

By David Gray | Sat 22nd February 2025 - 11:43 am

Steve Bannon has become the latest high profile political figure to give a fascist salute, with this one coming during the increasingly extreme CPAC convention.

I suspect that if a decade ago, you told someone that we would be having a debate on whether or not this is acceptable, you would have been met with incredulity, yet here we are. Of course, it all originated from Elon Musk. And if this had been an isolated incident, followed by a swift apology, then I could probably accept it. Perhaps I am being generous, but I honestly don’t believe Musk deliberately gave that salute – I believe he is a physically awkward individual who got carried away and performed a gesture that is, unfortunately, pretty much an exact replica of a fascist salute. Any reasonable person, on having this pointed out to them, would apologise immediately and pledge to be more careful in future.

But Musk, who seems determined to build his entire public persona around trolling his political foes (and I use the word ‘trolling’ very deliberately – most of his views are derived from internet memes and viral content with scant regard for factual accuracy), is not a reasonable person. Instead, he gave the impression of finding the furore it caused rather funny. In a more sensible political age, his supporters would have been keen not to shine a light on this most injudicious of actions, but we are so politically polarised now that they felt they had to not just back him but copy him. It reminds me of one of the very few true statements to have been uttered by Donald Trump – that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and (he) wouldn’t lose any voters”. Although ostensibly joking, there was sadly more truth in this than perhaps even he realised. The same is now broadly true of Elon Musk.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Zelensky’s Options

By Tom Arms | Sat 22nd February 2025 - 9:40 am

Volodomyr Zelensky has had a tough job since February 2022. And since the election of Donald Trump it has become a whole lot tougher.

In just the past ten days the American president and his acolytes have gone over his head and behind his back to negotiate directly with Russia’s Vladimir Putin; accused Zelensky of being a dictator; demanded virtual total control of the Ukrainian economy; ruled out Ukrainian membership of NATO and the return of territory; accused Ukraine of starting the war and undermined negotiations by announcing that Russia “holds the cards.”

Trump has also damaged relations with NATO allies by cutting them out of any negotiations about Ukraine’s future, despite the fact that Ukraine is in Europe and the Europeans have contributed more to its defense then the US.

But hold on. Zelensky and his European allies have a few cards of their own.

The biggest ones involve cash. Russia is spending and leaking money and earning less and less while its bills pending pile grows bigger and bigger.

Let’s start with its Sovereign Wealth Fund (aka National Wealth Fund or NWF). This has been the main source of ready cash for Putin’s “special military operation.” In January 2022, the NWF coffers held $210 billion. At the start of this year, the fund had dwindled to $116 billion. But wait, it’s even worse than that. Almost all of the war spending comes from liquid reserves which have shrunk more than 75 percent from $130 billion to $40 billion.

At the current rate of spending, Putin will run out of liquid cash in less than a year. His borrowing options are limited. The IMF and World Bank are out of the question, as are western commercial banks. This leaves the Chinese who would doubtless drive a hard bargain.

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Lord William Wallace

How do we defend liberalism from this attack?

By Lord William Wallace | Fri 21st February 2025 - 3:39 pm

Liberal democracy is not the default setting for forms of government.  Autocracy, or dictatorships, are.   Liberal democracies, and the open and liberal societies on which they rest, have to be constructed through political struggle and persuasion, and defended once established through similarly vigorous activity.

We can all now see how direct and determined current attacks on liberalism are: well-funded, by a cross-national coalition of hard-right parties actively supported by the Trump Administration in the USA.  This week they gathered in London for the second conference of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, jointly funded by Paul Marshall (majority owner of GB News, who has long since drifted away from his SDP candidacy and Liberal Democrat support to the dark side of right-wing politics) and Christopher Chandler, a multi-millionaire based in Dubai.  Kemi Badenoch gave a ‘keynote’ speech at the conference.  Nigel Farage was interviewed, embarrassed as a double divorcee at being asked about his support for family values.  Hungarian, Australian, Italian and other ‘alt-right’ figures thronged the conference, although the themes predominantly followed American culture wars and Christian nationalism.  What we have seen show how far the British right, including the Conservative Party as well as Reform, have been colonised by American right-wing think-tanks and foundations.  GB News is fully on board; the Mail and the Telegraph seem unsure of how far to support this Americanization of British politics.

What unites this diverse coalition is their shared hatred for liberalism and ‘the woke virus’.  For the most articulate, this extends to a rejection of the modern state and the principles of social democracy, reasserting male supremacy, traditional roles for women and repression of ‘deviations’ like homosexuality.  The ‘dark enlightenment’, a concept that Peter Thiel has espoused and whose most articulate proponent was a guest of honour at Trump’s second inauguration, holds that freedom is incompatible with democracy and that society should return to the pre-rational hierarchy of the 18th century.  Others believe that strong men shape history, society and economy– citing Nietsche, Ayn Rand and Thomas Carlyle.

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Paul Walter

Dr Adam Kay and the vital importance of the mental health of NHS staff

By Paul Walter | Tue 18th February 2025 - 7:24 pm

On Valentine’s Day, I went with my Valentine, to see Adam Kay:Undoctored at Newbury’s Corn Exchange.

I have a soft spot for Dr Adam.

His book “This is going to hurt” was a great read – hilarious but in a dark way, and in a way that made a very strong point about the NHS.

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Vince Cable

Vince Cable writes…Standing up to Trump

By Vince Cable | Mon 17th February 2025 - 7:29 am

I know from experience that leading the Liberal Democrats is a frustrating job; marginalised in the media and patronised by the two traditional parties. But periodically we hit on a message which resonates in the country, as with Charles Kennedy’s opposition to the Iraq war.  Ed Davey may have found another: ‘Stand up to Trump’. 

These are early days in the second Trump administration, but a political, economic and cultural revolution is under way. The MAGA movement is also much bigger than its capricious, unpredictable leader. Trump’s apostles like JD Vance and Hegseth are ideologically extreme but also articulate, smart and superficially plausible. And they regard Britain with contempt: our secular and liberal values; our diverse society; our democratically elected government. We need to understand that the sentimental nonsense about the ‘special relationship’ is over. We are under attack.

I have some sympathy for our government. Starmer is being understandably cautious recognising that there is much uncertainty and danger.  The resulting passivity has however created a leadership vacuum. The Tories and Reform vie to be mini-Trumps. They are also skirting around the edge of treacherous collusion with people who openly declare their wish to overthrow our legitimate government. Nor will leadership come from the lazy anti-Americanism of the far left which sees Trump as merely a cruder spokesman for American imperialism than Clinton or Obama.

Step forward the leader of the Liberal Democrats to provide a focal point for resistance. The fact that Ed Davey has attracted the abuse of Trump’s outrider, Elon Musk, is to his credit. Being described as a ‘snivelling cretin’ tells us less about him than about the deranged people who insult him: the MAGA folk who think that Tommy Robinson is the authentic voice of the British working class; that London is a Muslim city; and that ‘free speech’ has been outlawed in the UK. The irony of using ‘freedom’ as a dividing line with Britain appears to be completely lost on people whose idea of personal freedom is ownership of offensive automatic weapons, facilitating mass killings. As for the decadence and decay of Europe it pays to point out that, in Trump’s macho USA, male life expectancy is five years or so less than ours and less than in China or Ecuador.

But apart from firing verbal projectiles, what does ‘standing up to Trump’ look like?  Tariffs?  We will be dragged down like everyone else by a global trade war.  But in relation to Trump’s irrational obsession with bilateral trade balances, the UK is in the clear albeit with some minor quibbling about the statistics. Britain’s exports are, any event, skewed to services and other items which don’t carry tariffs. An exception is steel, and the remnants of this once great industry are set to take another beating. Outside the EU, Britain does not have the clout to retaliate, and, in any event, the Americans will point out that for British exporters to complain about tariffs is a bit rich since Britain unilaterally raised tariffs against itself when it left the EU customs union.

More reassuringly, the USA is no longer quite the power in world trade it once was, or Trump thinks it is.  The EU is the dominant power in trade in goods and services combined, China in goods. Though relatively declining, the US is still the world’s largest importer with around 15% of world imports narrowly ahead of the EU and China. It can damage its trade partners, as it clearly intends to do, but there is nothing to stop them trading more with each other. America, of course, runs big trade deficits.  It has the privilege of being able to consume disproportionately by issuing dollar IOUs (which may soon lose their appeal as a store of value). Trump’s particular genius has been an ability to translate this self-indulgence into victimhood. We have no reason to fuel this national self-pity.  We should ignore it; diversify away from the USA; re-build trading relationships with our European neighbours; and prioritise emerging markets including those that annoy the Americans as with China, Mexico and Vietnam. Hedging is the best response to uncertainty.

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The Voice

Christine Jardine: At the centre of the culture wars are people who just want to live their lives

By The Voice | Sat 15th February 2025 - 10:30 am

Official portrait of Christine Jardine @HouseofCommons/Roger HarrisChristine Jardine was described by Labour MP Nadia Whittome as having “long been ahead of many in this House when it comes to equalities issues, including being outspoken in support of the rights of sex workers”  a debate on LGBT History Month in Parliament on Thursday afternoon. Earlier, Christine had made a heartfelt speech which you can watch here. She looked back to the deeply homophobic and toxic atmosphere in the 1980s towards gay people and highlighted some of the injustices they had to deal with and how we are seeing the same tropes played out today.

Here is her speech in full:

It is a pleasure and an honour to follow the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen). I concur with everything she said about the work being done by the Women and Equalities Committee.

It is important to recognise where we stand in history, because when we talk about LGBTQ rights, women’s rights or racial equality in this place, we often talk about the journey that we have been on and what we have achieved. Yes, we have achieved a lot, but we face enormous challenges at this moment in our history. Our country’s LGBTQ community need to look at us today and know that we will stand up for them and that we will fight for their rights, including their right simply to be who they are.

But we have faced challenges before, and we have overcome them. I think of Scotland, particularly my home city of Glasgow, where I was brought up. In the 1970s, and when I was a student in the 1980s, it had unfortunately garnered for itself the unenviable reputation of being one of the worst places in Europe to grow up gay. Attitudes were somehow more polarised in Scotland than anywhere else in the UK. In 1957, a poll showed that more than 80% of Scots did not want homosexuality to be decriminalised; the figure was 51% in England.

In preparing for this debate, I found an article in a 1982 student newspaper from the University of Liverpool, whose student union disaffiliated with the University of Glasgow because it refused to allow a gay society to form. According to the union president, that refusal was on the ground that the age of consent for homosexual sex was 21 and, given that most students were younger than 21, the union did not want to “give the impression that the Union in some way bestows an unofficial blessing on their activities… many members of the Gay Society are not interested in a constructive approach to changing the membership’s attitude…but using this as a ploy to gain momentum to destroy the character of the Union as we know it.”

We hear an echo of that language today, but imagine how young LGBT people must have felt hearing and reading it. That was the kind of attitude they faced on a daily basis.

And imagine if we had been able to tell them that, 40 years later, Glasgow would be in the top five places in Europe for LGBT people to visit and enjoy and that, despite those attitudes, a long, rich history has developed of the community across Scotland coming together to support each other. We have improved so much, as those figures show.

Edinburgh Befrienders, later known as the Lothian Gay and Lesbian Switchboard, opened in 1974 and was the UK’s first bespoke helpline for gay and lesbian people—beating Switchboard, which still exists, by just one day. Edinburgh was also home to Scotland’s first LGBT bookshop, Lavender Menace, and in 1995 welcomed 3,000 people to Scotland’s first Pride march. It is now huge, the event of the year, and I have been privileged to speak at it twice.

Of course, much of this change has been possible only because of public figures, including: former MPs such as Robin Cook, who equalised Scots law and English law on homosexuality; Val McDermid, whose 1987 novel “Report for Murder” featured Lindsay Gordon, Britain’s first fictional lesbian detective; and award-winning author Jackie Kay, the second woman and first lesbian to hold the post of Makar, Scotland’s national poet, and whose work has dealt with race, gender, transgender identities and her own sexuality. Thanks to such people and places, so many attitudes, laws and the understanding of LGBT+ people have changed for the better.

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It’s time to practice what we preach

By Charles Dundas and Julian Tandy | Wed 12th February 2025 - 12:30 pm

Headshot of Julian TandyIt’s not often a motion comes along to Federal conference that is actually about true Federalism. Federalism is a concept synonymous with the Lib Dems. We campaign for it at a national level and we practice what we preach when it comes to the internal organisation of the party. Or do we? There’s a motion coming to Harrogate conference in March which addresses this for candidates – and we are delighted that it points towards a much more progressive and federal approach to how the party operates..

As those responsible for overseeing the approval and selection of Westminster candidates in our respective States – Scotland and Wales – we added our names to support the motion (F10) to implement the lessons of the General Election Review.

You can read the candidates motion here.

For us, this motion is about three key things:

Getting Federalism right for the three States

It gives the three States an equal seat at the table when it comes to setting Westminster candidate selection rules and procedures. Rather than Scotland and Wales being treated as the poor relations expected to follow wherever England goes, all three States will have parity in decision-making, reflecting the views of our respective State committees in Joint State meetings to collectively decide the way forward. This is exactly how Federalism should work – State parity and democratic accountability to members through conference of our processes and procedures.

Diversity and equality

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Lord William Wallace

William Wallace writes: Spending Cuts or Tax Increases? Can we avoid the choice?

By Lord William Wallace | Tue 11th February 2025 - 11:55 am

One of the oddest things about British and American politics is that it remains acceptable to politicians and right-wing commentators to call for cuts in overall taxation without specifying what cuts in spending programmes should accompany them.  After successive Republican Administrations in the USA that have cut taxes and then found it difficult to make comparable reductions in spending programmes, the Trump Administration is at least being ‘honest’ in publicly slashing major federal programmes – through dishonest in suggesting that tariffs will provide a generous new stream of revenue.  In the UK the Mail and the Telegraph, and the Conservative leadership, still attack every suggestion of higher taxation, as well as many proposals to squeeze current spending. 

The Labour Government boxed itself in before the election by promising not to increase the three largest sources of government revenue.  It over-emphasised the potential for returning to faster growth as a means of increasing revenue; and is therefore stuck with multiple crises in public services, while loading extra demands on Council tax in the hope that local Councils will share the blame. The impact of Trump on the global economy increases the obstacles to growth which we (and other countries) face.  Rachel Reeves is hinting at cuts, not only in welfare benefits but also in key public services and public investment.  So what should Liberal Democrats be saying if the government does delay infrastructure investment and squeeze key services?

Across the board, both the public investment needed to revive the UK economy and the public services which support our society are in acute crisis.  The Financial Times last week published a horrifying account of the physical state of some of the hospitals included in Boris Johnson’s unfunded rebuilding programme.  The UK spends much less on government support for research and development than many of its competitors.  The promised AI supercomputer (underfunded in Conservative treasury calculations) has been put on hold; financial support for Ph.D students in STEM subjects, crucial for future innovation, has been shrunk.  The state of Britain’s prisons, after years of under-investment and overcrowding, is appalling.  We have been promised an additional 6500 teachers for schools, but school budgets have not been increased enough to pay for the much-need pay increase for existing teachers, let alone to recruit more.  Similarly we have been promised more neighbourhood police and Community Support Officers, without yet the funding to keep them in place.  We all know that local governments are in desperate financial straits; that social care is a neglected area that is dragging the NHS down with it; and we need to increase our defence budget substantially.

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Anne-Marie Simpson

Introducing Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine

By Anne-Marie Simpson | Wed 5th February 2025 - 10:56 am

Lib Dems with an eye on recruitment may have spotted an interesting new job ad in circulation:  Public Affairs, Communications and Administration Officer for the Lib Dem Friends of Palestine. So, who are the Lib Dem Friends of Palestine (LDFP), what do we do, and in what ways could Lib Dems help make a difference now for Palestinians and a political crisis that has threatened global stability for so many decades?

LDFP was founded some 20 years ago for all party members interested in supporting justice for Palestine. We believe that the Palestinian people have the right to live in an independent state of Palestine, just as the Israeli people have the right to live in the independent state of Israel, based on the 1967 borders. To achieve that, Israel must end its illegal occupation of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza. We call on all party members to support this aim, both in principle and by the actions we take, and we actively lobby for it within Parliament and in the wider political sphere.

The principles behind this position align with the core values of the Liberal Democrat Party, namely liberty, equality, democracy, community, human rights and internationalism. We believe support for the aspirations – and rights – of the Palestinians is a very natural fit and sits well with our work with our liberal allies worldwide in calling for justice and peace for the Palestinian people.

We also recognise Britain’s special historic relationship with, and assurances given, to Palestine and the Palestinians. We believe this gives our country a particular responsibility to recognise a Palestinian state, to stand by the rights of its people and strive for a peaceful solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict.

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Nick Da Costa

FCC report following agenda selection meeting

By Nick Da Costa | Wed 29th January 2025 - 9:55 am

The Federal Conference Committee met on Saturday to run through a number of items leading up to Spring Conference in Harrogate, which is being held from 21 to 23 March 2025. This will be our first return to Harrogate in almost 16 years. 

We had a large number of items submitted to Conference, in addition to report backs to the Committee from our Constitutional & Standing Orders Working Group.

We are delighted that so many people have already registered for Conference and we encourage any members who have not yet signed up to Conference to do so via: LINK

We aim to publish the agenda in the next couple of weeks.

The upcoming deadlines are: 

Amendments and Emergency motions drafting advice deadline – 13:00 on 24 February 2025

Amendments and Emergency motions deadline – 13:00 on 10 March 2025

We received a large number of motions from across the party, and are extremely grateful for the time and effort that members make in formulating policy motions and ideas for debate at Conference. We really wish that we could select so many more that ended up on the final list, but as always time at conference is at a premium and a large number of motions, although selected in the first round, did not make it through the second round or third rounds when we then started to look at reducing timings. 

As regularly mentioned, time is tight at conference, and especially this Spring Conference. There are a number of items that the Federal Conference Committee has very little control over, which we are forced to take at Conference. This signficantly reduces the time available at Conference for Policy Motions. For example, the FCC has to take Constitutional Amendments and Standing Order Amendments if they are ‘in order’ and thus have little leeway on rejecting these in order to allow more time for policy debates. Furthermore, we have a number of items (including one constitutional amendment) which the Committee felt needed a reasonable time to debate at Conference, and thus this also reduces the time available. 

Furthermore, I would also like to mention the drafting advice service that the Federal Conference Committee offers. This service is provided by the Committee to offer drafting and language advice on motions submitted to conference and cannot always cover advice on policy matters; I would, in these instances, recommend reaching out to members of the Federal Policy Committee, spokespeople, and party AOs, who may have people within the their groups with specific policy expertise and would be able to assist with formulating policy. If you also want to find out more about how to write policy, the FCC will be undertaking a training session at Conference on how to write a good policy motion, and this information will be published in the Conference Agenda and Directory. 

From the motions submitted, we selected: five policy motions and four constitutional amendments. The committee went through various rounds of selection, and it is always a very challenging decision to select which motions should or should not be added to the agenda. I would like to thank the staff who attended the full-day meeting and also the members of the committee for their contributions and hard work.

I have included the list of motions submitted, including the names of the motions and if selected/not selected and the brief reasons for non-selection, please note that some of the names of motions may vary between now and the publishing of the agenda. 

We are looking forward seeing you at Conference, and if you have not yet had a chance to register, please do so via https://www.libdems.org.uk/conference

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