Tag Archives: featured

Hina Bokhari

Hina Bokhari writes…Cargo bikes are an important tool towards cleaner air

By Hina Bokhari | Wed 30th August 2023 - 12:31 pm

Over the last few months, a heated debate has been taking place over the expansion of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) to outer London.

While this debate has continued to rage, we shouldn’t forget there are other ways in which we can reduce air pollution in London and other towns and cities across the UK.

One of the most interesting, but least reported methods for reducing air pollution in our cities is the use of cargo bikes.

Cargo bikes are bicycles that allow you to carry cargo (or heavy loads) easily, with electrically assisted models being able to carry loads of up to 250kg. The goal of their use in London has been to move freight and delivery transport away from polluting road vehicles and towards a more sustainable, clean air friendly and congestion free model – in many ways adapting the model pioneered by food delivery companies like Deliveroo for much larger goods.

This is important because freight vehicles (large goods vehicles and heavy goods vehicles), make up 17% of total miles in London, but have a disproportionate impact on emissions and air quality. This amounts to a quarter of the total carbon emissions from transport, and around a third of the total nitrogen oxides and particulate matter from road transport.

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Caron Lindsay

Vince Cable: The net zero consensus is over

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 30th August 2023 - 9:50 am

How do you save the planet when we no longer agree on key measures to save the planet? These questions are posed by Vince Cable in his latest column for Comment Central. As Vince often does, he poses questions that some Liberal Democrats will find difficult, particularly in relation to North Sea Oil licences and relations with China.

Consensus between the parties is key to making long term plans to save the planet, he argues.

He sets out how far the Conservatives have fallen on climate change:

It was Margaret Thatcher who originally embraced the global warming issue and wider environmental stewardship and who demonstrated by championing the Montreal Protocol on the Ozone Layer the force of British leadership. David Cameron (initially) and Boris Johnson continued this tradition. The resigning Environment Minister, Zac Goldsmith, has told us, however, that this Prime Minister is simply uninterested. Or hostile. Or cynically preparing for what I call the CAT strategy in the coming election: climate; asylum; and transgender; a culture war campaign.

He outlines a series of uncomfortable trade-offs that he says we must be prepared to make to get to Net Zero.

One of those trade-offs is cost. Nothing fuels populist anger more than regressive levies on environmental bads. For families whose sole practical, means of transport is an old banger, environmental taxes are resented, no matter the impact on the planet or local air quality. Politicians may choose to press ahead but they cannot ignore the negative side effects. In practice, the trade-offs are more complex. The environmental levy paid on fuel bills to provide support for new renewables was criticised for increasing energy bills but has helped to drive down the cost of offshore wind to a point that it is now consistently cheaper than gas.

He says that nuclear must also be part of the package:

Indeed, hostility to this impeccably zero carbon and energy secure domestic source has been led by the same green campaigners who oppose fossil fuel use. What we need is a portfolio of different, low carbon and secure sources including new renewables, nuclear and carbon capture.

This will cheer those within the party who are challenging our longstanding anti nuclear energy policy. Last year a motion to include nuclear power as part of an energy security package was put to Scottish Conference and referred back.

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Geoffrey Payne

Sarah Green MP to speak at Social Liberal Forum pre conference dinner

By Geoffrey Payne | Mon 28th August 2023 - 7:55 am

Are you going to Lib Dem conference next month? Conference starts at 9am on the Saturday morning, so if you want to be there and not miss anything you probably need to arrive the day before. 

So what is happening on the day before on Friday evening? Well the conference program will not mention anything because conference has not started yet. There will be hundreds of Lib Dem members in Bournemouth, but nothing is happening. 

Apart from one event that we in Social Liberal Forum (SLF) are organising. For every in-person autumn Lib Dem conference the SLF have organised their pre-conference dinner and we would like to welcome LDV readers to come and join us. We are delighted to announce that our guest speaker at this event will be Sarah Green MP, winner of the Chesham and Amersham by-election and a former director of the SLF. This will be a great opportunity to meet other conference representatives before conference starts.

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Caron Lindsay

Nadine finally quits – how you can help Lib Dem Emma Holland-Lindsay win Mid Beds

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 27th August 2023 - 10:21 am

Nadine Dorries first announced her intention to resign her parliamentary seat “with immediate effect” on 9th June. And then she decides to actually do it 79 days later while I’m out celebrating my 35th wedding anniversary, returning to the scene of the crime for an absolutely delicious meal and some even lovelier cocktails.

So this means that the formal starting gun will likely be fired on the by-election campaign to replace her when Parliament resumes on 4th September. However, the Lib Dem campaign to get our brilliant candidate Emma Holland-Lindsay elected has been going on since the day after Nadine made her original announcement. Within hours, campaigners were gathering and swapping leaflets in supermarket car parks and the like.

If, as expected, the by-election takes place on 5th October, the publication of Nadine Dorries book about the downfall of Boris Johnson on 28 September, and any serialisation before, is bound to grab some headlines.

Ed Davey was questioned on whether the Lib Dems were the challengers on the For the Many Live podcast with Iain Dale and Jacqui Smith in Edinburgh:

He said he was feeling good about the prospect of a Mid Beds by-election as Labour party members there had told them they were voting for us. He said he wasn’t sure that we were going to win, but we were definitely the challengers. There was no way, he said, that people in the predominantly rural constituency were going to vote Labour to get the Tories out. He accused Nadine Dorries of an abuse of Parliament for her behaviour.

Last night, Ed said:

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Caron Lindsay

An extra million pounds in donations boosts Lib Dem finances

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 26th August 2023 - 12:06 pm

The accounts of political parties with an annual income or expenditure of above £250,000 for the financial year ending 31 December 2022 have been published by the Electoral Commission.

The results show that the SNP and Conservative show a fall in income, while the Liberal Democrats and Labour are in a much stronger position. Figures show that the Liberal Democrats attracted £1 million more in donations than it did the previous year, a sign of success and donor confidence. What is crucially important is that the party has been able to bring in a significant rise in donations at an earlier stage in the electoral cycle, allowing crucial investment in the seats we hope to win at the next General Election.

From the Guardian:

For the Lib Dems, whose profile has been raised by a series of byelection wins, total income increased only marginally, but within this, money from donations rose from £1.9m to £2.9m.

One of the things that adversely affected our income last year was having to cancel our first planned in person Conference due to the period of national mourning when the Queen died.

For the SNP and the Conservatives, things are less healthy:

In contrast, the SNP’s donation income halved from just under £700,000 in 2021 to about £350,000 last year. The party is heavily reliant on membership income, which dropped slightly but still brought in more than £2.2m of the £4.2m total.

The Conservatives’ accounts show the party spent over £2m more than it earned during 2022, with total spending of just over £33m. During the same period, donations, which are traditionally the Tories’ major source of income, fell by slightly more than this deficit, from £20.5m to £18.1m.

You can see all the parties’ accounts on the Electoral Commission website with ours here and the full documents and financial reports filed by the party here.

In their report, the party’s officers say:

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Caron Lindsay

LISTEN: Ed Davey on For the Many Live at Edinburgh

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 21st August 2023 - 11:56 am

Ed Davey’s appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe is now available online.

He talked to Iain Dale and Jacqui Smith for their For the Many podcast.

Ed was in cracking form, very funny, bright and relaxed.

He came on stage while Iain and Jacqui were having a bit of a barney about women’s football. I had tweeted Jacqui after Iain told Harriet Harman that one thing that men could do better than women was play football. She got a lot of mileage out of that over the various shows. Anyway,  Ed was full of support for the Lionesses.

Jacqui then challenged Ed to come up with an act of heroism after Keir Starmer helped find a dog while he was on holiday in the Lake District. She might not have been expecting him to come up with an actual example, but he did rescue a woman from the path of an oncoming train.

Jacqui challenged him to get Iain Dale, who has said multiple times that he’s not sure who to vote for at the next General Election, to commit to voting Lib Dem. Ed is smarter than to fall for that trap, and, while he outlined lots of good reasons to vote Lib Dem, he recognised we might not gain Iain’s support.

Iain challenged him on why our national polling isn’t reflecting our by-election success. He pointed to local election success and the fact that we were talking to people about the issues they cared about.

His top task, he said, is to get the Conservatives out of Government.

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Caroline Pidgeon

Caroline Pidgeon writes: Take Back Control?

By Caroline Pidgeon | Mon 21st August 2023 - 9:05 am

For decades, I have been championing devolution; for communities to take back control over the decisions that affect their lives from the very local allocation of funding to improve an area, to wider service provision and structures.  The beauty of our local government is that it looks different in different areas, to suit local communities’ needs.  

However, no matter what the structure, funding has always been a problem for local services.  Back in 2013, Boris Johnson, as Mayor of London, commissioned Professor Tony Travers to Chair an expert panel called the London Finance Commission, which produced Raising the capital | London City Hall.  This report transformed the debate and voiced the need for London and other cities to have more financial control.

The EU referendum, and Britain now having left the EU, has made the case for devolution and fiscal devolution more urgent.  Whatever Leave voters felt they were voting for, it was not ‘business as usual’.  It was not an endorsement of centralised power, simply removing it from Brussels to Whitehall and job done.  People across the country feel isolated from the democratic process.

The referendum result not only affects the country as a whole but also within our nations, regions and cities.  The uncertainties from Brexit and the pandemic may well be better managed at a local level, with local and regional government able to respond more effectively.

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Mary Reid

Those A level grades are actually good news

By Mary Reid | Fri 18th August 2023 - 9:35 am

Students who got their A Level, BTEC or T level results yesterday have had a tough few years. They took their GCSES in 2021 after 18 months of major disruption to their studies. That then had an impact on their choices at 16 and their ability to benefit from the next stage. This has all been well understood by their teachers, by exam boards and by universities. We should celebrate the students’ resilience and tenacity, and the ingenuity of the teachers who have been working through some very serious challenges.

Some of the headlines in the press have been rather strident. “Thousands miss top grades as A Level results plummet” is the headline in the print version of the Guardian, modified to “Thousands fewer students in England awarded top A-Level grades” online. That seemingly minor change in wording indicates that the situation is actually more nuanced than it first appeared.

This year the spread of A level grades has returned to close to that in 2019, which means that fewer students have been awarded the coveted A or A* grades. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that their futures are going to any different from their peers in 2022.

A levels and their equivalents act as gatekeepers to Higher Education. In theory, it doesn’t matter where the grade boundaries lie as long as the students’ achievements are ranked correctly. This enables the Universities to identify the students best suited to their courses. (Of course, it is more complicated than that, because we don’t have post-qualification admission, and offers have to be made on predicted grades – that introduces some inaccuracies into the system that may or may not be compensated for during clearing. But that’s a topic for another time.)

As it happens, Universities were aware that grades would be returning to “normal” this year so adjusted their offers accordingly, which should mean that the transition to Higher Education will be smooth for most students. In fact, 79% of students who applied to University this year achieved the grades to get into their first choice, compared with 74% in 2019 – so that left more students happy with their results than pre-pandemic.

Whilst that is the overall picture, there is one striking anomaly. The Guardian article mentioned above includes this statement: “Independent and grammar schools had the largest drop in top grades compared with last year”. Put another way, the students who benefitted most from the temporary assessment processes used during the pandemic were those in selective and fee paying schools – the very pupils who are already advantaged by our skewed education system.

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Caron Lindsay

Radio phone-in highlights reality of homophobia

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 16th August 2023 - 12:40 pm

If i’m out and about with my husband and we hold hands, nobody bats an eyelid. If we see something that makes us laugh, we can look at each other and have a hug, we can o so without being hassled.  If he is meeting me off the train, I can rush up and give him a kiss. We can be pretty much as spontaneous as we like.

The stabbing outside The Two Brewers in Clapham on Sunday night, which is being treated as a homophobic incident, shows that not everyone can take the simple act of being out and about with their partner for granted.

In response to this appalling attack, the Young Liberals said:

Our account is run by two LGBTQ+ people who live in south London.

The appalling homophobic attack on two men in Lambeth on Saturday night is an horrific reminder that prejudice is alive and well in our capital.

Our thoughts are with the victims at this incredibly difficult time, and we would like to join @Ben_Curtis_1 and @LambethLibDems in sending our best wishes to the staff at the wonderful @2BrewersClapham for their response.

This incident is a reminder that we need to do so much more to tackle the hatred that our community faces, and we are glad to see the Met Police are treating this with the seriousness it needs.

A Radio 2 phone-in yesterday highlighted the everyday prejudice to which the LGBT+ community is subjected. Gay men described how they wouldn’t dare hold hands for fear of attracting trouble. Lesbians gave horrendous accounts of being sexually assaulted by men who were apparently trying to “turn” them. Even in a country where the majority of people back LGBT rights, too many can’t properly be themselves in public.

A friend told me that he and his partner of almost 10 years hardly ever hold hands in public and if they do, they do a risk assessment first. We also talked about how lesbians face both homophobia and misogyny.

It’s worth listening to the discussion on the programme to understand what LGBT+ people have to put up with.

Earlier this year, the UN’s independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity said that abusive rhetoric from politicians was to blame for a surge in hate crimes against LGBT+ people. In his report, he said:

Bolstered by strong protections of freedom of information in the UK, news media and social media are instruments for advocacy and visualizing violations of the human rights of LGBT persons. On the other hand, government authorities and civil society representatives in the UK informed the Independent Expert that those media channels are also spreading anti-trans discourse and stereotypical imagery of LGBT persons as dangerous, often employing homophobic and transphobic rhetoric.

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Caron Lindsay

Ed Davey calls for action to help those struggling with rising bills

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 16th August 2023 - 8:48 am

As inflation falls to 6.8%, Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey appeared on Sky News this morning to give our party’s reaction:

While it was positive news that prices aren’t using quite so fast, he said, but they are rising fast,  faster than they are in many other countries and faster than they have for many, many years.

Families and pensioners when they go and do their shopping, when they get their energy bill, when they pay their mortgage, their rents, they are still seeing them go up by huge amounts. And what is worrying Liberal Democrats today is that this month’s inflation figures will be used to calculate rail fares for next year and we are calling for a freeze as some way of helping people who are really really struggling.

Challenged that the Government has to balance the books, Ed said that we always do balance the books and go to the country with a fully costed manifesto, compared to the Conservatives who have been reckless with Government money and that’s why the country is in such a mess.

I listen to Conservative ministers and they seem so out of touch with the realities that most families and pensioners are facing. When we talk about these sorts of figures they seem quite complacent and give themselves a pat on the back when families are really struggling out there. I just want a Government that seems to care a bit more and this lot just don’t.

Let’s just pause a minute there. This “families and pensioners” phrase irks me a bit. It isn’t quite as bad as the awful “hard working families”, but it completely ignores a huge swathe of people who are struggling just as much as the soft Tory voters in the blue wall seats we are going after. They like the “families and pensioners” language because it has a comforting ring of deserving poor about it but that’s no excuse.

We need to make sure that the young people struggling to get by on low incomes, earning less and getting less in benefits despite living costs being just as high feel included, or the growing number of single person households with only themselves to rely on.

What’s wrong with just using people? Our mission as Liberal Democrats is to build a fair, free and open society where NO-ONE is enslaved by poverty, ignorance and conformity and our language should reflect that universality. We have so many good ideas that would help all people who are struggling so it seems a shame to limit our language.

Rant over and back to the interview. Ed was challenged that our plans to help people were not realistic. He said:

The real world is that the economy is struggling and we need to get people back to work. If you took up Liberal Democrat ideas to boost the economy, you would get more people using public transport which is more important for our economy, for the environment and so you have many benefits.

I just think the Government is so out of touch. They don’t seem to get how the combination of  price rises, mortgages, rents, energy bells railway fares, is hitting people.  We’ve calculated that a commuter family is going to be clobbered by an extra bill of £300 every month due to the combination of mortgage, food and rail fares. This is a huge amount and when I hear government ministers saying they can’t do anything. They could do something but they don’t. The fact that they don’t backs up my argument that they are out of touch and don’t care.

He was asked whether the energy price cap should be rethought as it harmed competition:

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Tom Reeve

Reality barges into Small Boats Week

By Tom Reeve | Mon 14th August 2023 - 11:55 am

As commemorative weeks go, it’s been a bad one for Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman. They waited all year for Small Boats Week only to have it spoiled by Leftie Lawyers, so-called fire safety ‘experts’ and an outbreak of lethal bacteria. 

On top of that, they suddenly had half the country shouting at them about human rights, compassion and other foreign ideas after six people drowned in the Channel. 

Never mind that they had done what their base wanted and blocked safe passages for refugees, given the French state-of-the-art kit to harass the migrants and even bought the immigrants a yacht. 

Ok, not exactly a yacht but close enough, right? They spent £1.6bn and then, inexplicably, no one wanted to move into their Barge of Death. 

You have to feel for them – no one had ever organised a Small Boats Week before, so they were in uncharted waters. Even if they’d had a map, how could they be expected to know what ‘Danger – Rocks’ meant, let alone ‘Danger – Moral and Ethical Hazard’? 

You may accuse them of setting sail without, a skipper, a rudder or even a destination, but what you have to understand about the Tories is that their approach to disaster planning is quite literal. 

Whether you are talking about the Asylum Crisis, the Sewage Crisis, the Housing Crisis, the Cost of Living Crisis or the Climate Crisis, the government knows that failing to plan is the first step in winging it. It gives ministers, backbenchers and tabloid hacks free rein to make up policy on the hoof – what could possibly go wrong? 

You may fret that a backlog of 175,000 asylum cases, costing the government £6m a day in temporary accommodation fees, is a sure-fire indication that something has gone wrong with their immigration policy, but the government knows it’s money well spent. 

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Caron Lindsay

Review: Vince Cable at the Edinburgh Festival

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 10th August 2023 - 6:55 am

Our Glorious Former Leader, Vince Cable, came to Edinburgh yesterday to talk to Iain Dale. It was great to see him for the first time Bournemouth  Conference in 2019. He looks well and hasn’t aged even now he’s turned 80.

There was a time when our press office held its breath whenever he came to Scotland. I remember one Conference in particular, ahead of the independence referendum where he said something that wasn’t quite our line which the press and the SNP made hay with. Today, he could not have been more on message, praising what Ed Davey was doing in terms of building the party’s infrastructure and campaigning capacity.

Talking of Ed, he’s going to be here on Saturday at 4 pm, talking to Iain and his For the Many partner Jacqui Smith. You can get tickets here. If you haven’t listened to this podcast, do, it is bloody hilarious and you need it in your life. And if you are going on Saturday, get in touch with me ([email protected]) and I’ll let you know where we are meeting beforehand.

Iain started by asking him about his time as a Labour Councillor in Glasgow in the 1970s. Vince described how he was chief whip at a time when corruption was rife, and four of his group ended up in Barlinnie. He left for the SDP and has never felt  tempted by Keir Starmer’s Labour who are not offering anything positive. He criticised Wes Streeting for saying that it is better to offer no hope than false hope and thinks that they should be doing more to inspire people.

Education, he says, should be the priority at the next election, rather than the NHS. The Tories have failed so comprehensively on it and it desperately needs investment to improve attainment.

He reckoned that there was not much chance of us going into coalition after the next election. We would be heavily outnumbered, and the party would be reluctant to go there again.

Iain asked him if he was “pissed off “that he was seen as too old to go for leader back in 2006. He was, but he accepted the mood to hand power to the next generation

He talked about the coalition years, saying that he winced along with many of us at the Rose Garden scenes.  He says he’s probably the last man standing, though, who thinks that we were right to go in to the coalition and reeled off a long list of things that we had done,  the Green Investment Bank, the industrial strategy, investing in children from deprived backgrounds in school.

He vigorously defended privatisation of Royal Mail saying it was the only option to enble it to modernise as it wasn’t allowed to borrow.  He blamed the union for not co-operating. Iain pushed back on him as he thought the union leader was pretty reasonable from his interviews with him on LBC but Vince said that if they had co-operated, the privatisation would have brought in more money for the taxpayer. He also said that the most recent problems within Royal Mail were the result of bad management rather than the privatisation.

He considered resigning several times during the coalition years – over the  sting when he said some inappropriate things about the BSkyB takeover, when cuts started to hit his department, particularly in the further education sector and  towards the end when it was all going wrong.

He talked about his time as leader and the stroke which led to him stepping down. While he made a full recovery, he decided to stay quiet about it at the time in case it was seen as s sign of weakness.

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Mary Reid

Victory in ULEZ campaign

By Mary Reid | Fri 4th August 2023 - 10:13 am

On the doorstep, and on social media, in the ward where I live there has been one main topic recently – ULEZ. And of course it hugely influenced the by-election result in Uxbridge, which should have been a pushover for Labour. Sadiq Khan’s rollout of the Ultra-Low Emission Zone (and a daily charge of £12.50) to the whole of Greater London at the end of this month has been greeted with anger and derision, not to mention conspiracy theories.

This has put Liberal Democrats in a position which is sometimes difficult to articulate in political soundbites. On the one hand we firmly support measures that reduce air pollution and prevent unnecessary deaths. On the other hand we recognise that the implementation of the scheme could cause real hardship to people already angry about the cost of living crisis. But there is some good news at last.

When ULEZ was first introduced in inner London it covered an area with excellent public transport. Few of us in the suburbs would think of driving into the centre anyway because the Congestion Charge already applied. And there was an 18 month period in which residents could prepare for the new charge.

This time the Greater London extension to ULEZ was announced only months before it was due to come into effect, and across an area with far greater reliance on cars, where the tentacles of London’s transport system spread more widely. Now some 90% of cars are already ULEZ complaint but there is a real issue with the remaining 10%, which are largely older vehicles. Those owners most affected are people who are least able to afford to change their cars, especially given that their old ones are going to be virtually unsellable. There have also been heartfelt pleas from sole traders whose livelihoods are dependent on their aging white vans.

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Caron Lindsay

Jo Swinson and Duncan Hames welcome third son

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 2nd August 2023 - 11:43 am

Former Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson and her husband Duncan Hames are getting used to being outnumbered by their children at the moment. On Friday night, their third son, Robin arrived.

Last night, his proud mum announced his arrival on Instagram

Welcome to the world, our baby boy Robin! Born at home on Friday night, a happy and healthy 8lb 3oz bundle of love.
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The best things come to those who wait, and though he didn’t appear until 17 days after his due date, he didn’t hang about in the end: first contraction to delivery a very intense 1hr 45mins!
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We’ll never know if it was the dates, raspberry leaf tea, curries, pineapple, birth ball bouncing, multiple sweeps, the more fun ways to induce labour or just the fact that he had to come out sometime. But – well – my waters broke 4 hours after @duncan.hames and I watched Barbie, maybe that was #kenough?

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The Voice

ALDC Campaigner awards – submit your nominations now

By The Voice | Sat 29th July 2023 - 11:29 am

Last week, we invited you to submit your nominations for the Party Awards which will be presented at Conference.

This week, ALDC invited nominations for their equivalent of the Oscars for Lib Dem campaigners. You don’t have to be a member of ALDC to nominate but, let’s face it, if you have anything at all to o with campaigning, you should be a member of ALDC anyway, because you are more likely to win.

From their website:

Each year, we recognise the outstanding work and achievements of Liberal Democrat councillors, campaigners and campaign teams through our Campaigner Awards. And nominations are now open for 2023, sponsored by our print partners, Election Workshop.

THE  CATEGORIES

Best literature – We’re looking for local parties’ examples of well-designed literature with strong messaging, photos and layout. We want to see your best.

Best local election campaign – We’re looking for local parties that have fought effective and strong 2023 local election campaigns. Tell us about your winning strategy. What innovative new ideas did you use? What great literature did you deliver? Did you develop a digital strategy and run a successful online campaign? How did you raise the funds to support your campaign?

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Lord William Wallace

Why we should defend the BBC

By Lord William Wallace | Sat 29th July 2023 - 9:18 am

The ‘Huw Edwards affair’ has been another round in the long-running Murdoch press campaign against the BBC.  The exact details behind the charges against him as published in the Sun remain unclear; the Sun has now retreated from its initial story, and the police have said that there is nothing to justify pressing charges.  The Times fired off shots in support, listing the highest salaries of BBC presenters with a disapproving commentary – not noting the remarkably high fees that Talk News, owned by the Murdoch press and promoted ad nausea in the pages of the Times, pays to right-wing MPs and chat-show hosts for doing a few hours’ work a week.  Other papers have hinted at the not so defensible private behaviour of Dan Wootton, a former Sun journalist now with GB News and Mail Online, on which the Murdoch press has remained silent.

 The BBC attempts to hold together debates within the British national community.  The Murdoch press, from its first incursion into British media nearly 50 years ago, ha been a disrupter and divider.  Rupert Murdoch has also seen himself as a political player, expecting political leaders in Australia, Britain and the USA to court him for his support – or, at least, to moderate his opposition.  Tony Blair travelled to Australia to meet him; Keir Starmer has reportedly met him twice this year.  The aggressive style of the Murdoch media has made British politics more raucous.  But it’s in the USA, without a well-funded public broadcasting network, that it has had the deepest impact.  Fox News has given voice and encouragement to the populist right, to climate change deniers, conspiracy theorists and closet racists, preparing the ground for Donald Trump to make a successful run for the Presidency while dismissing as ‘fake news’ the evidence-based policies he was rubbishing.

While all active and fit Liberal Democrats were out delivering leaflets or knocking on doors in Somerton and Frome the BBC showed its quality in the underlying message of the opening concert of the summer Proms.  Dalia Stasevska, Finnish but born in Kyiv, conducted a concert of mainly Nordic patriotic music, Sibelius and Grieg, as well as a new commission from a Ukrainian composer.  It carried a strong implicit message of British solidarity with Ukraine and of the links we have with countries on Russia’s western border.

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Roisin Miller

Blue walls to giant cannons and all the memes in between

By Roisin Miller | Tue 25th July 2023 - 6:55 am

Love them or loathe them – those victory stunts should teach Lib Dem campaigners one thing: clear, simple communications will be key to success at the next election.

There seems to be a new dividing line in Lib Dem WhatsApp groups: between those who are excited for each new stunt, and those hiding behind the sofa, wondering when they are safe to emerge.

Whichever camp you might be in, there is a serious point we all must take from these stunts. They cut through. But why?

Money-can’t-buy coverage

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but these stunts are probably not aimed at Lib Dem party faithful. They are designed to captivate photojournalists, meme developers, social content writers.

These stunts achieve what so many who work in brand communications crave – wall to wall coverage complete with a key message. I cannot count as a seasoned communications professional the number of times the ask has been summaried as “help us go viral”. Whilst there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, an authentic stunt with a clear message that links to your campaign and that is a bit fun, is the best way to get attention. Authentic really is key to success as without authenticity they flop. If you need proof beyond the political sphere, look at the plethora of Barbie stunts – some very small but all authentic and on-message.

The thing about these stunts is they have media hooked, they all want to know what the next Lib Dem celebration will be, what the photos will look like. This means media turn up, they give us more attention than they might otherwise and therefore we get more coverage.

For local parties, the same principle can be used for social channels or focus leaflets – if you make a simple point in a compelling manner, people will come back again and again. They will want to know what you have to say and you will be seen as an authority.

For all the jokes, the Blue Wall stunt did change the narrative. It introduced the phrase into media vernacular and made it clear, the Lib Dems were back.

Simplicity is key

I make this point as we’ve all seen those focus leaflets – three-line headlines with commas, sub-clauses followed by an article written in 8pt font face and full of every intricacy of a piece of planning policy. This is great for a certain section of Lib Dem members (not me) or an online article for those who are interested. Focus leaflets like this won’t win elections.

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Tom Reeve

Elon Musk shows Lib Dems the way

By Tom Reeve | Mon 24th July 2023 - 8:44 pm

Elon Musk, in his finite wisdom, is axing the Twitter bird logo in favour of the letter X. This follows his recent decision to rebadge the company as X Corp. 

‘What’s this got to do with me?’ I hear you say. ‘I’m a Lib Dem and I’ve got leaflets to deliver.’ Yes, you do have leaflets to deliver, but stay with me – this could be a golden opportunity for the Lib Dems, but only if we have the courage to seize it.

In the infinite reaches of his multidimensional consciousness, Musk has realised the truth about birds: they’re boring. (In fact, they probably don’t even exist )

It’s visionary stuff, right? I mean, what do birds do for us, apart from inspire us with their majestic soaring and melodious tunes? Birds may be the descendants of the dinosaurs and have colonised every continent on Earth including Antarctica, but can they make a cheese sandwich or send a Tweet? No, they opted for beautiful plumage rather than hands – that was their choice, now they have to live with it. 

So, he’s going to axe the blue bird of acrimony and replace it with – surprise, surprise – an X.  As letters go, there are so many reasons to use X. It’s a structurally sound letter, it’s associated with mystery, it’s the 24th letter in the alphabet. Pirates use it on maps, mathematicians use it in equations, and Musk names all his bloomin’ companies after it. 

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Caron Lindsay

Party Awards – just over a month to get your nominations in

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 23rd July 2023 - 11:55 am

There’s just over a month to get your nominations in for the party awards which will be presented at Autumn Conference.

You need to get your nominations together by 24th August.

All the information you need about how to do this is here.

The awards being presented in Bournemouth are:

The President’s Award

Eligibility: open to any Party Member elected to public office and who has demonstrated excellence and commitment.

Criteria: the winner will be recognised for outstanding commitment and service to the Party. Local, regional, and state parties should be seeking to nominate people who deserve recognition for their hard work, long service, and demonstrable dedication to the party, at whatever level. It is expected to be special awards to be awarded from the Party for whom public recognition is overdue. Nomination portal

The Harriet Smith Liberal Democrat Distinguished Service Award

Background: this award is named for Harriet Smith, who campaigned and worked tirelessly for the Party, notably alongside Paddy Ashdown, with the Federal Conference Committee, and in the Bath party. A beloved figure, she is also missed from the Conference revue and by the team at the Liberator Magazine.

Eligibility: open to any Party Member never elected to public office.

Criteria: the Harriet Smith Award shares its conditions with the President’s award. Nomination portal

The Belinda Eyre-Brook Award

Background: this award is named for legendary campaigner Belinda Eyre-Brook, whose achievements with the Party include being Ed Davey’s agent in 1997, overturning 15,000 Tory Majority, and establishing one of the party’s longest-serving MPs.

Eligibility: given to recognise and celebrate the efforts of people working for our elected representatives in their local areas – from local party employees to political assistants to council groups, to people working in MPs’ constituency offices.

Criteria: the winner of this award will care about their local area and be committed to the success of Liberal Democrats within it. Turning local political priorities into electoral success, and priorities for elected officials is a key part of the work of successful local Party figures – as is linking with the national party. Nomination portal

The Dadabhai Naoroji Award

Background: this award is named for the ‘Grand Old Man of India’, Liberal MP, and joint founder of the Indian National Congress, Dadabhai Naoroji. His work highlighting the reality of British rule over India and campaign for justice is an example to us all and his place in history, as the first non-white and first Indian Parliamentarian, is assured.

Eligibility: presented annually to the local Party that has done most to promote ethnic minority participants to elected office as Councillors, Assembly Members, Members of Parliament or Members of European Parliament.

Criteria: this award is designed to encourage local parties to work towards the goal of increasing their ethnic diversity to more accurately reflect the areas they represent, and to recognise those that already make a great effort to involve different communities in their work. Nomination portal

The Penhaligon Award

Background: this award is named for former MP David Penhaligon, a cherished former stalwart of the Cornish Party who took the seat of Truro in 1974. David was a prominent figure in the party and the nation and will always be remembered for his succinct advice to local campaigners: “‘stick it on a piece of paper and stuff it through a letterbox’.

Eligibility: any local Party

Criteria: presented to the local party anywhere in the world which demonstrates the most impressive increase in membership and exemplary activities to deliver and involve members and supporters. It recognises the hard work done to build a Party which is attractive and effective at a local level. Nomination portal

The Patsy Calton Award

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Caron Lindsay

Kicking off the weekend

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 22nd July 2023 - 11:03 am

Welcome to the first proper weekend of the Summer holidays,  in England at least. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, we’re about half way through.

Powys Lib Dems help low-income families during Summer holidays

For many of us, it’s a chance to relax and unwind with our families. For others, it can be an incredibly stressful time. For parents on low incomes, the Summer holidays can be a nightmare. In Powys, Liberal Democrats have helped a bit with that, as we reported earlier in the week, by finding the money to continue the vouchers for families entitled to free school meals in their area. It was shocking that the Welsh Government scrapped the scheme introduced by our Kirsty Williams when she was Education Minister.

Labour is doing its best to kick struggling low income families in the teeth with Keir Starmer’s announcement that Labour would not get rid of the two child limit on benefit claims. He’s got himself in hot water with his own party. I have to say that if I had been a single mother with 3 kids in Uxbridge,  struggling to pay the bills, I’d not have been inclined to go out and vote Labour on Thursday. They can blame ULEZ all they like for their narrow defeat, but could they have won if they had had anything hopeful to say to people living in poverty?

Somerton and Frome shout-outs

Of course, it’s always great to wake up on the Saturday after a glorious by-election win. The heroes of the campaign have, I hope, managed to get some sleep. A huge shout out to Paul Trollope, whose arrival in Somerset within 24 hours of the by-election being a reality got the short campaign off to a flying start. Ruth Younger, match fit from 3 by-elections already helped deliver Sarah Dyke’s victory yesterday.

I suspect all of the staff involved had plans for the Summer which probably involved getting some r and r before the build up to a General Election year. For the fourth time in two years, they mobilised and delivered a cracking campaign so well done to all of them.

And to everyone who travelled there, including the fair few who went from Scotland, a massive thank you.

One group of people who don’t often get thanked are the volunteers who host the Maraphones. Richard Huzzey, Jacquie Gammon, Stephanie Ouzman and Hannah Perkin have been running these events at least 4 days a week since June. On polling day, they were joined by Federal Conference Committee Chair Nick Da Costa who just popped in to make calls but ended up pulling a 12 hour shift as a host to help with the many people who joined in the event. Thousands of calls were made during the maraphones, to voters and to members to encourage them to go, which is crucial in the early days of the campaign to build momentum.

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The Voice

++BREAKING NEWS++ Massive success in Somerton & Frome

By The Voice | Fri 21st July 2023 - 2:56 am

“I think we’re going to need a bigger tractor”

The news from Somerton & Frome has surpassed even our most optimistic predictions.

  • Sarah Dyke, Liberal Democrat: 21,187 (54.6%)
  • Conservative: 10, 179 (26.2%)
  • Green: 3,944 (10.2%)
  • Labour: 1009 (2.6%)

That’s a 29% swing from Conservatives to Liberal Democrats.

Huge congratulations to Sarah Dyke MP, and to everyone involved in the campaign.

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Mary Reid

Ed Davey sends a message to Somerton & Frome

By Mary Reid | Thu 20th July 2023 - 9:16 am

So today’s the day. Three by-elections to fight, although Lib Dems are really just concentrating on the one in Somerton & Frome.

Ed Davey has sent this message:

Today voters across Somerton and Frome have a chance to send a clear message to the Conservatives that they have failed our country on the NHS, the cost of living crisis and protecting our rural communities.

Every vote for Sarah Dyke, our brilliant Liberal Democrat candidate, is a vote for a local champion who will put Somerset first and hold these Conservatives to account.

It’s clear this by-election is a two horse race between the Liberal Democrats and an out of touch Conservative party.

If the Liberal Democrats succeed in overturning this massive 19,000 Conservative majority, it will show voters in Somerset are fed up with being taken for granted by Rishi Sunak and his failing government.

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Caron Lindsay

What on earth is Keir Starmer playing at by refusing to remove two child limit?

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 19th July 2023 - 8:43 pm

One of the cruellest things that the Conservatives introduced was limiting benefits claims to two children.

Just last week, the Child Poverty Action Group and other children’s charities wrote to all party leaders highlighting the impact of this dreadful measure and calling for its removal.  They said:

The two-child limit is a discriminatory policy which is a clear breach of children’s human rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The two-child limit robs children of the basic joys of childhood. It forces parents to take out a loan to buy a school uniform. Children give up hobbies because of the costs associated, and they miss out on birthday parties as they cannot afford to bring a gift for a friend.

The cost of living crisis has made the impact of the policy even more acute. The number of affected families struggling to pay for gas, electricity and food has risen sharply in the last 12 months.

The two-child limit has a devastating effect on families like Joanna’s.  Joanna works full-time and lives with her partner and three children. Her partner is too unwell to work at the moment. They lose out on £270 a month due to the two-child limit. Joanna has struggled to keep up with rent payments and, in June 2023, her landlord was granted an outright possession order to evict the family. They have just 14 days to leave their home.

Scrapping the two-child limit is the most cost-effective way to reduce child poverty. It would lift 250,000 children out of poverty and mean 850,000 children are in less deep poverty.  This single policy change would transform the life chances of 1.5 million children across the UK, children like Joanna’s, who are currently facing homelessness.

Children deserve the chance to thrive, but continued inaction will permit a cohort of children to grow up in poverty, to miss out on play, to be held back at school and denied a better future. If nothing is done, over half of children in larger families will be growing up in poverty by 2027/28.

So I was genuinely shocked to see Keir Starmer tell Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday that Labour would retain this regressive, poverty increasing measure.

Of all the bad things the Tories have done, surely to goodness this would be one of the first to go?

For the avoidance of doubt, Liberal Democrats would get rid of it. We opposed it when the Tories brought it in and continue to do so.

UPDATE 20 July 9 am

In fact here is Ed telling Kay Burley exactly that yesterday.

As well as being the wrong thing to do morally, Starmer has now put himself in a position where he has picked an unnecessary fight with his party. Scottish Labour MSPs Monica Lennon and Pam Duncan Glancy expressed their frustration on Twitter:

They were joined by constituency Labour Parties, MPs and other MSPs.

Monica Lennon later wrote in the Daily Record:

Knowingly plunging children and their families into hardship is heartless and with the cost-of-living crisis hitting low-income families hard, it’s never been more vital to scrap the cap.

Many of those affected are working families, who despite grafting to provide for their kids, struggle to put enough food on the table in our unequal society. Single mothers are hit the hardest.

It’s no wonder many people are feeling scared and hopeless because the choice between heating and eating is no choice at all.

I agree with every word of that.

Starmer has given himself a problem he didn’t need to have.

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The Voice

Last day of campaigning in Somerton and Frome – how you can help elect Sarah Dyke

By The Voice | Wed 19th July 2023 - 6:55 am

Imagine how great it would feel to wake up on Friday morning to find that the voters of Somerton and Frome had elected Sarah Dyke as the 15th Lib Dem MP, and the fourth Lib Dem by-election winner in just over two years? You can be part of the campaign either on the ground or from the comfort of your own home. All the information you need to help is here.

Our campaigners have been flocking to this gorgeous bit of Somerset from all over the country.

Scottish Lib Dem Leader Alex Cole-Hamilton is spending the week there:

Eastleigh PPC Liz Jarvis seems to have hardly been away from Somerset these past few weeks:

The place seems to be turning Lib Dem orange:

The Guardian is really positive about our chances:

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Caron Lindsay

10 years since Same Sex Marriage Act

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 17th July 2023 - 12:55 pm

One of the Lib Dems’ major achievements in coalition was giving same sex couples the right to marry. Today, it’s 10 years since the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 received royal assent. It would be another eight and a half months before the first marriages took place in England and Wales. Scotland would pass its own legislation on 4 February 2014.

Each of the Parliamentary stages saw mostly bright and cheerful vigils outside. The picture comes from the second reading in the Lords on 3rd June.

Brightness, positivity and reasonableness were the …

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Mary Reid

“I am not Amazon”

By Mary Reid | Wed 12th July 2023 - 8:16 pm

Are you as angry as I am by Defence Secretary Ben Wallace’s comments today? At the NATO summit, as a side issue, the G7 nations promised more military supplies for Ukraine. In a briefing to journalists Wallace said:

There is a slight word of caution here, which is that whether we like it or not people want to see gratitude.

…

My counsel to the Ukrainians is sometimes you’re persuading countries to give up their own stocks of weapons and yes the war is a noble war and yes we see it as you doing a war for – not just yourself – but our freedoms.

But sometimes you’ve got to persuade lawmakers on the Hill in America, you’ve got to persuade doubting politicians in other countries that you know that it’s worth it and it’s worthwhile and that they’re getting something for it.

And whether you like that or not, that is just the reality of it.

…

I said to the Ukrainians last year, when I drove 11 hours to Kyiv to be given a list – I said, I am not Amazon.

Earlier he had told Sky News that Ukraine is “always asking for more even after receiving the latest batch of arms”.

Richard Foord, our Defence spokesperson, shares my fury. He says:

Ukrainian people are dying every single day because of Russia’s illegal and unjust invasion – all they are asking for is the equipment needed to protect their country.

It is ill-judged to scold them for this and demand that they show more ‘gratitude’. Rishi Sunak should make clear that the Defence Secretary’s comments do not represent the UK’s position on our support for Ukraine.

It’s vital that we continue to stand for the rules-based order and with the Ukrainian people.

Quite apart from the appalling reminders of past imperial power, don’t we all know that threats to an ally are threats to all of us?

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The Voice

Half a million comments!!

By The Voice | Thu 6th July 2023 - 8:15 am

Today we reached an amazing milestone. Since Lib Dem Voice was first started in 2006 we have published 500,000 comments.

Lib Dem Voice was created by Rob Fenwick, and its Founding Editors were Alex Foster and Will Howells.  Regular contributors included  Mark Pack (whatever became of him?) and Richard Huzzey. Over the years quite a few Lib Dems have been privileged to edit these pages.

Huge thanks go to you, our readers, for engaging with our blog and adding your thoughts to the discussions.

Our 500,000th comment was posted today by Michal Siewniak on this post. He writes:

75 years of the NHS. Wow, what a milestone! The only global service of its kind when it was first set up. It served and treated for decades millions of people. The establishment of the NHS was a model for other countries across the world, which tried to replicate it. The NHS brought together expertise, professionalism and diversity of its incredible talented and dedicated workforce. The NHS needs us now; we need to do everything, despite various challenges, to keep it alive and find a way to ensure that it stays “fit for purpose” and sustainable. easy task? No, but we must give it a go. Too many people rely on it and too many of us will need it now or in the future.

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Mary Reid

Liberal Democrats celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the NHS

By Mary Reid | Wed 5th July 2023 - 10:29 am

Today is the 75th birthday of our much beloved, but beleaguered, NHS.

Ed Davey said:

With parents who passed away when I was young, looking after my Gran, now caring for my disabled son, throughout my life the NHS has been there. Often through really tough times and the more joyful birth of my children.

I am fiercely proud that it remains one of the most iconic services we have in the UK free to everyone.

The best birthday gift of all would be to put the NHS back on a stable footing, by increasing the number of available GP appointments, ending the long waits for ambulances, and closing the growing divide between those that can access dental care and those who can’t.

Daisy Cooper is our spokesperson for Health, Wellbeing and Social Care and she has written a longer post here. In it she says:

High-quality healthcare, free at the point of use, is essential for individual freedom and good health gives people the freedom to live the lives they choose. And that’s why as Liberals we have always championed the NHS.

We were there at its founding, and helped forge this national institution on the proposals set out in the Beveridge report in 1942.

And we’re here now still fighting for those values across the country.

The next election will give us a real chance to show the country what the Conservative’s dereliction of duty means for their health, and what our plans are to do something about it.

The Liberal Democrats are proud to be champions of the NHS and we will always fight to ensure that the care everyone receives is based on their need, not their ability to pay.

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Caron Lindsay

Come and see Ed Davey and Vince Cable at the Edinburgh Festival

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 1st July 2023 - 10:55 am

Vince Cable and Ed Davey  are appearing at the Edinburgh Festival next month.

On Wednesday 9th August at 1pm, Vince will be taking part in Iain Dale’s All Talk and you can buy tickets here.  I went to a few of Iain’s shows back in 2019 and they were very entertaining and aimed at getting past message discipline and exposing the human being. This will be pretty easy with Vince. I say with great affection that message discipline was not always his biggest priority which is probably why he was so well liked. Rumours that the press team will be watching his performance from under a desk are exaggerated. Probably.

Under Vince’s leadership, the Liberal Democrats had some stunning results, winning 16 MEPs and gaining 700 councillors in 2019. We benefitted from a clear message, mission and purpose. And it was all the more remarkable that he led us with so much energy when facing his own health challenges, including having a mini-stroke in the Summer of 2018. However it was his economic credibility, his prediction of the 2008 economic collapse and telling Gordon Brown that he had gone from being Stalin to Mr Bean that he is perhaps best remembered for. He has had a fascinating life, from starting out as a Labour Councillor in Glasgow and the 70s, to marrying his first wife Olympia against his family’s wishes. And of course there was Strictly.

Ed will be appearing on Saturday 12 August, the Glorious Twelfth itself, at 4pm on Iain’s For the Many show with former Labour Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. You can buy tickets here. When his appearance was first announced, I wrote:

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Russian chickens

By Tom Arms | Sat 1st July 2023 - 8:30 am

The Kremlin skies are turning black with the wings of chickens coming home to roost.

The Russian mutiny may have caught Putin and the rest of the world off guard, but its roots were there for all to see.

It is the direct result of hubris, decades of corruption, lies, autocracy and an over-reliance on uncontrolled non-state players.

Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin may have been exiled to Belarus but the problems raised by his largely unopposed march on Moscow are still there.

They start with the structure of the Russian military and government. Vladimir Putin has created a feudal edifice with a complex chain of command that rivals that of any medieval monarch.

If any of his nobles (aka oligarchs) looked as if they were accumulating too much power then he simply dismissed, exiled or murdered. Those who remained loyal were transformed from crooks and spies into billionaires.

This feudal structure extended to the military. The Wagner Group is not the only Russian private army. There are ten of them, including one which owes its loyalty to Army Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov and a praetorian guard for President Putin.

The divided army is the main reason that Prigozhin could successfully occupy the major Russian military depot at Rostov-on-Don and march to within 120 miles of Moscow. There are unconfirmed reports that he had the support of General Sergei Surovikin, commander of Russian forces at Rostov and in southern Ukraine and General Mikhail Mizintsev, better known as the “butcher of Mariupol.”

Surovikin is reported to be under arrest. The whereabouts of Mizintsev is unknown. Both men were praised by Prigozhin in his numerous social media rants along with Alexei Dyumin who must also now be under a cloud.

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