Tag Archives: featured

Caron Lindsay

Five New Year’s resolutions for Liberal Democrats #1

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 1st January 2016 - 1:35 pm

So, it’s the morning after the New Year parties. Everyone else in my house, including the dog, is sleeping off a fun evening of Monopoly in which the two teenagers comprehensively bankrupted the adults over some seven hours. I therefore have time to suggest a few New Year’s Resolutions for Liberal Democrats to see us through 2016.

Don’t let anyone put us in the corner

I don’t know about you, but I am done with caution and contrition. Sure, we were in government for a few years and we seriously screwed a few things up. You’d think we were the only party ever to make mistakes, but we also did a lot of good things for good, liberal reasons. It was our Deputy PM who insisted that a judge-led enquiry investigate phone hacking when the Tories wanted to sweep it under the carpet. It was our Business Minister who brought in shared parental leave. It was our schools minister who gave extra money to disadvantaged kids in school. It was our Climate Change Secretary who faced down the Tories and made sure money was put into renewable energies. It was our Health Minister who started the long job of reforming appallingly poor mental health services which left many without the treatment they needed. Whatever you might think of Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander, the Tories’ recent welfare proposals show exactly what they would have stopped. It took a while for Nick Clegg to come round to the idea that Theresa May’s Snooper’s Charter was ridiculous, but once he got there he stood firm, for years. Oh, and there’s the small matter of protecting human rights legislation, too.

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Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron’s New Year Message: 2016 can be a year of hope and opportunity

By Tim Farron MP | Fri 1st January 2016 - 6:00 am

The New Year is a time to look forward and it is as important for us as a party to set ourselves new goals and ambitions as it is as individuals.

I am determined that the Liberal Democrats face the new year with a new sense of purpose, a new drive and a sense of ambition.

David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn both lead parties that are fundamentally divided. Whether it is over Europe, like the Conservatives, or their leader, like Labour, both the government and the official opposition are at war with themselves.

This obsession with their own internal problems is bad for politics and bad for Britain.

For the Conservatives, David Cameron and George Osborne are more and more obsessed with appeasing their backbenchers, resulting in policies that are punishing people that are trying to provide for themselves and their families. To make things worse, they are taking a wrecking ball to public services, particularly local government.

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Willie Rennie

Willie Rennie’s New Year Message: Let’s unite Scotland with a positive liberal message

By Willie Rennie | Thu 31st December 2015 - 6:00 am

So what can we look forward in 2016? The Forth Road Bridge’s continued opening (we hope). Scots athletes excelling as part of Team GB at the Rio Olympics. Andy Murray mounting another challenge at Wimbledon.

And the small matter of a Scottish Parliament election that will set the direction of the country for five years.

As ever, at this election voters face a choice.

They can choose five more years of constitutional division and grievances with the SNP who have failed to protect crucial services.

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Kirsty Williams AM

Kirsty Williams’ New Year message: Welsh Lib Dems are “united, growing and up for the fight”

By Kirsty Williams AM | Wed 30th December 2015 - 1:30 pm

2016 will be a big year for Wales.  With the Assembly elections just around the corner, people will soon decide who they want representing them in Cardiff Bay.

The Welsh Liberal Democrats head into these elections with our heads held high and a record to be proud of.  During this Assembly, we have used our influence in budget negotiations to secure, amongst other things, over £200 million extra investment in schools through our Welsh Pupil Premium.  This policy, directed at pupils that need it most, is central to what we believe in: ensuring that everyone, no matter their background, will get a fair start in life.  Despite being a small group in the Assembly, we have made a big difference to the communities we represent.

We combine this dedication to fairness with a pro-enterprise agenda.  We believe in supporting people who have ambition and ideas.  We understand that it’s not just government that creates jobs, but business too.  We recognise that in the real world, even our brightest need support to create and innovate.

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Caron Lindsay

Help us find the Liberal Democrat stars of 2015 – starting with Rosie Farron, Janet Rennie and Richard Rees

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 26th December 2015 - 10:00 am

For the last couple of years, around this time,  we’ve  asked you to name your Liberal Democrat Stars of the year.  Little did we know that in 2013, what we thought might be an interesting comments thread for a day or two would turn into a six part Liberal Democrat Roll of Honour  with some really lovely tributes to some fabulous people.

This year has been the worst time ever to be a Liberal Democrat, I’m not going to lie about that. What’s kept me going, though, is the camaraderie, inspiration and sheer dedication of so many people in this party. This coming year has its challenges, mainly in Scotland, Wales and London and with the EU Referendum. Our colleagues will sustain us in so many ways. It’s good to celebrate them.

This isn’t just about honouring the Great and the Good, although they are as eligible as anyone else. It’s about appreciating anyone from grassroots activist to Cabinet Minister who has made your Liberal Democrat journey easier, more stimulating and satisfying or who has provided comfort and inspiration for the future.

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Caron Lindsay

Tim’s top tunes: How many have you heard of?

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 24th December 2015 - 10:25 am

Tim Farron features tomorrow in a Christmas Day Lakeland Radio broadcast. Between 12pm and 3pm tomorrow, the pre-recorded show will air and Tim will count down his top 40 tunes.

Cumbria Live has the story:

There will be no Slade or Wham Christmas hits with Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron picking the music – instead there will be songs from the Sex Pistols, The Clash and X Ray Specs.

The show will feature on Lakeland Radio on Christmas Day with a selection of Tim Farron’s favourite hits from across the years including Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now by The Smiths which might be viewed as an unusual festive tune.

It is well known that Tim and I move in very different musical circles. One of us is the essence of all that is cool. One of us loves everything trashy, cheesy and camp. It’s therefore hardly surprising that I have only heard of a handful of his choices.

Here is his list in full. How many have you heard of?

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The Voice

Tim Farron: A message of hope at Christmas

By The Voice | Tue 22nd December 2015 - 1:56 pm

Tim Farron has delivered his first Christmas message as leader of the Liberal Democrats and reflected on a message of hope for the festive period.

Tim Farron's Christmas message

Tim Farron's Christmas message

Posted by Liberal Democrats on Tuesday, 22 December 2015

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Caron Lindsay

End of Term Report: Tim Farron

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 17th December 2015 - 9:30 pm

It’s five months since Tim Farron’s first full day as leader. As the political term comes to an end, how has he done in the role so far? What has he done well, and where is there room for improvement? Be warned, this is a long one. You might want to get a cup of tea and a biscuit.

First, let’s look at the highlights:

Those amazing speeches

That first one, just after his election. Have you embraced your diagnosis yet?

And then that emotional debut Conference speech with that impassioned section where he called out David Cameron for his failure to help refugees:

One of the reasons I supported him for leader was because of the heartfelt way he articulated our values:

We have a hell of a mountain to climb at the moment. It’s going to take a lot of work. It’s going to take a leader who’s zingy, persistent, gutsy, noisy and awkward who can articulate a liberalism that’s relevant, practical, optimistic and joyful. Tim Farron fits that bill as close to perfectly as it gets.

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Martin Petts

Spain’s historic liberal opportunity

By Martin Petts | Thu 17th December 2015 - 12:41 pm

Albert_Rivera_-_02Buckling under the weight of economic stagnation, endemic corruption and institutional failure, the old duopoly in Spanish politics of the right-leaning Popular Party (PP) and centre-left Socialists is finally breaking down. With just days to go until the general election on 20 December, voters look to be splitting four ways. On the hard left, Podemos has profited from the frustrations of many, but in the centre ground Ciudadanos (C’s) offers new hope for liberal minded voters.

Liberalism tends to be a dirty word in Spain. The country has had precious few popular liberal movements in its history and the label tends to be hijacked by the right, meaning many Spaniards equate the term with a “one rule for them, one for us” mentality, or corporate cronyism.

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Paul Tyler

Lord Paul Tyler writes…Votes at 16: Labour flunks it again

By Paul Tyler | Tue 15th December 2015 - 5:04 pm

As soon as it was known that 16 and 17 year old would have a say in the referendum on Scottish independence, I tabled a Bill in the Lords for a comprehensive change in the franchise. I have long believed that there is a strong case for lowering the voting age, in light of the maturity and political awareness of this group, and the many, much rehearsed adult responsibilities they take on. There is a pragmatic argument too, which is simply that creating a seamless link for as many young people as possible between citizenship education in schools, electoral registration in the classroom, and then actual participation at the ballot box, is likely to instil the habit of voting throughout later life.

With the advent of the EU Referendum Bill, I thought that even those who had reservations would surely accept that 16 and 17 year olds who had so successfully been given a say in the 2014 Scottish referendum could not be excluded from the franchise in a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union.  Labour told us that they agreed.

Our campaign then started out quite well.  With cross-party support for the principle at Committee Stage (when the Lords rarely votes), and then a thumping majority of 82 for the amendment at Report Stage, we were set-fair to force a government rethink. Or so you would think.

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Sam Lomas

Sustainable food the liberal way

By Sam Lomas | Tue 15th December 2015 - 11:00 am

veggies

Globally, the way we produce food is unsustainable. In the UK alone millions of tonnes of food are being thrown away, soil quality is deteriorating and dairy farmers are shutting up shop on a daily basis because of crazy supermarket price wars.

At the moment 800,000,000 people are ‘food insecure’ meaning they go hungry periodically. Not many are predicting the situation to improve, there is forecast to be a 69% gap between the crop calories produced now and those needed by 2050.

I see the problem as divided into 3 main sections: not enough food for a growing global population, an increasingly unsustainable global food production system and resource intensive diets.

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Joe Otten

The role of profit in ambition for housebuilding

By Joe Otten | Tue 15th December 2015 - 8:54 am

We have planning permission for around 8000 units granted and unstarted in Sheffield, and numerous brownfield sites which are considered unviable for development. The authority is in danger of not meeting its housing land supply, and a green belt review is looming. This is a northern perspective, and I daresay the issues are different in the south.

Now a common feature of the planning system as it operates in practice seems to be the negotiation between planners and developers to add conditions and extract gains from developments to serve public interest goals, such as:

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Ed Davey

Ed Davey writes: On the eve of a climate breakthrough …

By Ed Davey | Sat 12th December 2015 - 10:00 am

 

Whatever the press report on the Paris UN Climate Change agreement, it’s already clear there are 3 things we should remind people about:

  • first, it’s great news the whole world has come together to make the first ever global climate change agreement, so elusive over the last 25 years;
  • second, the impressive commitments to cut greenhouse gases are huge steps forward – and should make the remaining vital steps easier and cheaper;
  • third, Liberal Democrats played a major role towards this agreement – in leading the UK’s policy for Paris, in shaping the European Union’s and by representing the UK at the previous 5 UN climate summits – the essential building blocks for this weekend’s success in Paris.
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Caron Lindsay

++ BREAKING: Carmichael election stands – petition refused

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 9th December 2015 - 10:36 am

My anxiety-meter was at maximum this morning. I was pretty much at the throwing up stage first thing. I will be eternally grateful to the person who put me out of my misery as soon as they knew that the petition to overturn Alistair Carmichael’s election had been thrown out.

If I was that worried, what on earth must the last seven months have been like for Alistair and his family? On the face of it, the petition looked as if it had no basis in law, but legal proceedings are uncertain, expensive and incredibly stressful. Even the smallest of small claims can be tough to get through and this was a high profile national case.

I’ve known Alistair for a long time and he’s one of the most decent, honourable, liberal, tolerant people I know. He’s spent his life standing up for the powerless, for human rights, against the death penalty, for freedom and civil liberties. It’s been hard to see him and his family being put through this case on the basis of one mistake which was nothing to do with the election in Orkney and Shetland. 

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Vince Cable

Vince Cable writes…Where we can all agree on Syria

By Vince Cable | Sun 6th December 2015 - 8:00 pm

The political debate on Syria has produced a bewildering array of people proceeding from the same premises to opposite conclusions and from different premises to the same conclusions.   We have an ‘anti-war’ coalition which unites Nigel Farage, David Davis, Jeremy Corbyn, the SNP, the Greens and the Mail and the ‘pro-war’ camp includes the Tory government, a sizeable chunk of the parliamentary Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Financial Times and the Indy.

At recent party events I have attended there is disquiet and confusion.  I see that two thirds of Lib Dem Voice readers oppose the British air strikes. Veterans of Iraq war marches ask why we are not marching again to recapture one of the party’s finest hours.  I share some of the confusion no longer having the benefit of participating in discussions amongst parliamentary colleagues. I have had the benefit of Cabinet-level briefings, which led me to endorse air strikes 18 months ago; but much has changed since.

It would be useful to identify a series of propositions on which I believe most reasonable people, on either side of the debate, can agree.

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Paul Walter

Syrian air strikes decision – stirrings of unhappiness in the party

By Paul Walter | Sun 6th December 2015 - 9:08 am

The Independent on Sunday has pulled together a good number of quotes from party members who are not happy about the decision this week to support air strikes in Syria.

The report quotes Federal Policy Committee member Gareth Epps, who has written a critical piece on the Liberator blog entitled: “Is there any longer a point to the Liberal Democrats?”. The blog post includes this:

It seems Liberal Democrat MPs have learned nothing of the mistakes of action in Iraq and more recently Libya; nothing of their mistakes from the Coalition Parliament; and have understood nothing of the gaping chasm in opinion between them and the party members that have worked hard to get them elected. The reaction of those members – many of whom didn’t receive a single email from the party on how it would approach the issue – is of utter dismay.

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Stephen Tall

Stephen Tall’s diary: liberal jottings on the week’s big events

By Stephen Tall | Fri 4th December 2015 - 9:09 am

Honest doubt

I wrote on Syria last week that I was “mystified by those who’ve already made their minds up with cast-iron certainty on either side”. That’s still the case despite, and probably because of, the eruption of passions leading up to and beyond Wednesday’s vote. The UK is, after all, already involved in military action against Isis in Iraq. Sure, extending those airstrikes to Syria represents an intensification and, like any bombing campaign, requires serious consideration. But that is a question not of basic morality (if it were there should have been an equally strenuous efforts to cease attacks in Iraq) but of likely effectiveness.

And that, of course, is the known unknown of this week’s debate. None of us truthfully knows what will be the consequences of extending the campaign to Syria; just as we don’t know what might have happened if MPs had voted against action. There is no possibility of a controlled experiment which allows us to pose the counterfactual. All we are left with is our own opinion: which of the options facing us is most likely to result in fewest deaths? Ultimately, it’s as utilitarian a decision as that.

Which is why I get fed up with simplistic shroud-wavers shouting “blood on your hands” at those who support intervention. Innocent people are dying every day in this conflict, and further deaths are plotted daily by Isis, so delaying further this supposed “rush to war” will also directly lead to fresh casualties. See, we can all indulge this moral blackmail arms-race — but it gets us nowhere. Decisions like these are shades-of-grey. I respect opinions on both sides of the divide on Syria, but most especially those honest enough to recognise they may be wrong.

The worm’s turned

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Caron Lindsay

Mixed emotions after Syria vote

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 3rd December 2015 - 8:39 am

Yesterday was a very strange day, full of mixed emotions for me. I had instinctively felt from the start of all of this that the case for extending air strikes into Syria had not been made and, although I came very close, I could never get to a place where I felt the risks to people on the ground outweighed the potential benefits. Had I been a Liberal Democrat MP, I would have voted against. I watched a huge chunk of the debate and it was, at times, difficult to see my feelings being expressed by members of other parties.

This wasn’t like the coalition years, though. On more than a handful of occasions, I sat through parliamentary debates with gritted teeth, often feeling apoplectic because I could not understand why on earth we had even entertained the idea of voting for, say, secret courts or some of the more brutal elements of welfare reform. Yesterday, though, I could totally understand and empathise with our leader’s stance, driven as it was by the best of liberal, humanitarian and internationalist motivations. He made an absolute cracker of a speech, delivered with passion and confidence. If you haven’t seen it, watch this extract:

Here is my response in the House of Commons earlier today, on the decision to take action on ISIL in Syria

Posted by Tim Farron on Wednesday, 2 December 2015

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The Voice

Tim Farron’s email to party members on Syria

By The Voice | Tue 1st December 2015 - 9:41 pm

This has just come through from Tim Farron:

The decision every politician dreads is whether or not to send brave servicemen and women into military action in defence of our country.

When the Government asked MPs to support extending airstrikes into Syria in 2013 to target Assad, I refused to provide that support. I was not convinced at that time our intervention was properly effective, nor that it would be backed by a diplomatic effort to establish a lasting peace or prevent more suffering than it caused.

In response to that deep-rooted scepticism last time, I wrote to the Prime Minister last week together with Nick Clegg, Paddy Ashdown, Ming Campbell, Kirsty Williams and Willie Rennie setting out five principles against which the Liberal Democrats believe the case for extension of military action against ISIL in Syria should be based.

It is my judgement that, on balance, the five tests I set out have been met as best they can. I will therefore be asking my parliamentary colleagues to join me in the lobby to support this motion.

I have written in more length about how I have reached my decision. I hope you will take the time to read it here (note: and copied at the end of this post).

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Caron Lindsay

++LDV Members’ Survey on Syria – 67% oppose airstrikes now BUT…(and it’s a big but..)

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 30th November 2015 - 6:59 pm

Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum  to discover what Lib Dem members think about whether Liberal Democrat MPs should support air strikes against Daesh in Syria. 975 party members responded – thank you – and we’re publishing the full results.

We wanted to test feeling in the party about whether and in what circumstances members would back airstrikes in Syria. Over two thirds said that they would oppose them in current circumstances, with less than a quarter in favour. However, when we looked at a Syria where there was a real post war plan, or a more coherent army of ground forces to support, that changed radically, with most members who expressed a preference supporting using UK air power to defeat Daesh. Only 10.7% of people agreed that we should never back airstrikes, with 75% answering “no” to that question.

There is very strong backing for Tim Farron’s Five Tests, with two thirds of members saying that they were “about right.”

Here are the answers in full:

Do you think that Liberal Democrat MPs should vote to back UK airstrikes in Syria in the following circumstances:

Before a wider solution to the Syrian Civil War is in place (ie now)

Yes 24.31%

No  67.18%

Don’t know 8.51%

As part of an agreement with other states to end the war

Yes 56.51%

No 31.28%

Don’t know  12.21%

Only to support a wide coalition of ground troops

Yes  46.46%

No  35.28%

Don’t know 18.26%

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Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron writes… continuing the fight against the affordable homes flog off

By Tim Farron MP | Mon 30th November 2015 - 11:52 am

 

I made it clear over the summer and in my conference speech that housing and homelessness would be a top priority for me as leader. I said we would oppose the Right to Buy extension to Housing Associations and fight the Government tooth and nail in the Lords.

The fight is now well underway. I have been speaking in Parliament and will continue to lead our campaign in the House of Commons. After Christmas the legislation will be debated in the Lords, where our Lib Dem team will aim to cause the Government serious problems – which they have shown us in the last few weeks that they can do!

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The Voice

Willie Rennie’s message for St Andrew’s Day – a plea to help refugees

By The Voice | Mon 30th November 2015 - 8:55 am

Saltire and Forth BridgeToday is St Andrew’s Day. Here is Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie’s message to the people of Scotland:

Our Patron Saint was born in the village of Bethsaida, a short distance from the troubles in today’s Syria.  As we celebrate St Andrew’s day this year, millions of people across Syria and the Middle East need our help.

Last week I visited an Edinburgh charity which has been collecting clothes for refugees who have made the perilous journey from Syria to Europe.

In many respects they embody the values that St Andrew taught. Tolerance. Generosity. Openness. We need Scotland’s two governments to follow their example.

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Nick T

The case for Syrian air-strikes: not overwhelming, but strong enough

By Nick T | Sun 29th November 2015 - 2:34 pm

In the early hours of 21 August 2013, rockets began to land in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta. The civilian population of Syria had now become used to this, since Bashar al-Assad had decided over 2 years earlier that in response to a peaceful uprising against his totalitarian rule he would prosecute the most brutal military campaign by a ruler against his people that this century has seen. But this attack was different: the rockets were filled with sarin, a highly toxic nerve agent.

When the images of the hundreds of people killed and thousands injured began to circulate, there was international outrage of a level not so far seen in the Syrian Civil War. Momentum gathered for a military response. Obama’s red line had been crossed. Enough was enough.

Only it wasn’t. Obama dithered. Miliband played politics. Assad survived to kill another day.

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Caron Lindsay

Liberal Democrats should campaign against benefits “rape clause”

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 29th November 2015 - 11:43 am

George Osborne’s decision not to impose the cuts to tax credits may be welcome but in many cases is only putting off the agony. As research from the Resolution Foundation and the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows, working families with children still stand to lose more than £1300 a year, more than £100 every month. Nick Clegg spelled this out when he was in Oldham campaigning for Jane Brophy this week:

He’s just delaying it by smuggling the cuts into Universal Credit. I think we played an important role and a leading role in firstly, identifying the problem and then opposing it unambiguously.

I wasn’t (surprised at the decision). But they’re doing half a beastly thing instead of a beastly thing.

Actually, it’s more of a beastly thing than that. The cap on the childcare element at 2 children remains and, with it, an issue which was first highlighted by SNP MP Alison Thewliss back in July. There is a rather sinister devil in the detail which has not been removed by the Autumn Statement, the so-called “rape clause.”

This says:

the Department for Work and Pensions and HMRC will develop protections for women who have a third child as a result of rape or other exceptional circumstances

Someone sitting in an office in Whitehall has actually thought this, written it down and others have presumably thought it was practical enough to include. I actually despair.

So, how exactly is a woman supposed to prove that she has been raped, given that conviction rates are so low? Alison Thewliss has repeatedly questioned the Chancellor on how exactly this will be implemented, most recently after the Autumn Statement on Wednesday. Osborne replied:

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Caron Lindsay

Making the right decision on Syria

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 28th November 2015 - 5:41 pm

In some ways, the decision on whether to back the Government’s proposals to bomb Syria is one of the hardest the party has ever had to take. I’ll be honest, I don’t think that the case has been properly made in either long term strategy for Syria or in protecting the innocent civilians, many of whom are women and children. That is not to say that I can’t be persuaded. This is no Iraq where for months beforehand I just instinctively felt that it was the wrong thing to do. It’s a very complex set of circumstances and it’s very much a case of making a judgement call on the least worst option.

This piece is not about the rights and wrongs of the situation, though. It’s how we reach our position and how we conduct ourselves before, during and after. There have been things that have impressed me in the past few days, and things that have set off a few alarm bells. Tim Farron has not, I think, put a foot wrong. His reasoned approach with his five tests give credibility and authority and, unlike any other party, has given the government serious questions to answer. He has also been seriously engaging with people on Twitter and offline too.

From what I can see, the Liberal Democrat members seem to be pretty evenly split on whether to support airstrikes. There are sincerely held and well-argued points of view on both sides. So how do we get to a decision we can all live with? There are a couple of things that I think would help and a few things creeping in occasionally that certainly don’t. 

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The Voice

Farron on HIGNFY: Live blog

By The Voice | Fri 27th November 2015 - 9:00 pm

Tim Farron on HIGNFY It’s almost 9pm and time for this week’s hotly awaited Have I got News for You. Have you got your popcorn and glass of wine ready? We’re about to be off…

So Tim’s on Paul’s team..

If you are only just seeing this now and haven’t watched the programme, you can do so here on iPlayer.

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Stephen Tall

Stephen Tall’s Diary: liberal jottings on the week’s big events

By Stephen Tall | Fri 27th November 2015 - 9:20 am

Spending Revue Reviewed

‘You make your own luck,’ goes the saying. In which case, and only in this respect, George Osborne truly has started a “march of the makers” because he’s one hell of a lucky Chancellor. Had the independent Office for Budget Responsibility not lavished on him a £27 billion fiscal (and notional) windfall, this week’s Autumn Statement would have been far more wintry. As it was, he was able to play out the role of Santa, albeit a very Tory version: snatching away fewer of the kids’ presents in order to re-gift them to their grandparents. For this was a spending review which confirmed this Government stands shoulder-to-shoulder with pensioners (who vote, in droves) while shrugging its shoulders at the plight of the younger, working poor (who often don’t vote, and if they do probably vote Labour anyway).

Yes, the tax credit cuts were jettisoned for now — take a bow all those who’ve campaigned against them because it took concerted action to persuade the House of Lords and a few Tory MPs with a social conscience to stand up to this government — but, really, they’ve just been deferred. Once universal credit has been implemented (assuming that Godot-like day ever arises) the Resolution Foundation calculates eligible working families with children will be £1,300 a year worse off (even taking into account the so-called ‘national living wage’ and planned increases in the tax-threshold). Which might sound bad, but that average actually conceals far worse news for some. For instance, a single mum working part-time on the minimum wage will receive £2,800 a year less by 2020 under the Tories’ plans, while a working couple on the minimum wage with three kids will lose out to the tune of £3,060. Meanwhile the pensions ‘triple lock’ (of which Lib Dems have often boasted) will guarantee that pensioner benefits grow to more than half of all welfare spending.

Gone are the days when the Lib Dems could require a distributional analysis to ensure the pain of cuts was shared around to ensure that, as far as possible, Britain was all in it together. It’s George’s Show now. It’s just a shame some of his luck won’t rub off on those “hard-working families” he’s soon going to clobber.

Rational actors

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NewsHound

LibLink: Tim Farron: Join drive for new kindertransport to save refugee children from Syria

By NewsHound | Fri 27th November 2015 - 8:55 am

Tim Farron has written a moving, compassionate and persuasive article for Jewish News in which he calls for an initiative to help bring Syrian refugee children to safety in the same way as Jewish children under threat from the Nazis were brought to Britain in the 1930s.

In 2014, of the 13,000 unaccompanied children who were registered in Italy alone, 4,000 of them went missing. Refugee and migrant children in these circumstances are incredibly vulnerable, and there is a real risk that these missing children were subject to trafficking, forced labour and exploitation. Europe cannot continue to let this happen. If the UK government will step up and accept just 3,000 of these children, who have been processed by UNHCR and have been confirmed as having no identifiable family, then we can go on to press the rest of Europe, and indeed the world’s, governments to do the same.

Every politician in this country is agreed the Kindertransport, which brought over unaccompanied Jewish children from Germany in 1938, was the right thing to do. Now we need a new Kindertransport to save another group of vulnerable children, and send a clear signal of the renewal of the British values of which we are so proud.

He started off by wondering what it would take for him to leave his life and all he knows to seek refuge in a strange place:

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Brian Paddick

Brian Paddick writes… Chairman Mao might have backed Labour’s ID card plans, but Lib Dems won’t

By Brian Paddick | Thu 26th November 2015 - 6:43 pm

In the House of Lords today, Labour tried to resurrect the National Identity Card scheme with some support from the Conservative benches. The Government Home Office minister countered that it was too expensive and ineffective in that those we would most want to carry an ID card are the least likely to carry them.

Liberal Democrats object to the compulsory carrying of identity cards on principle, as an infringement of the liberty and the right to privacy of those lawfully going about their business but there are other reasons why a national identity scheme should remain dead and buried.

Not one of the tragic deaths or horrific injuries inflicted by terrorists in recent times in the UK could have been prevented had a national identity card scheme been in place.  The identities of the bombers and would-be bombers of the London transport system in 2005 were quickly established. The identities of the murderers of Lee Rigby were never an issue.

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The Voice

Liblink: Tim Farron on the five things Lib Dems want to see in the Spending Review

By The Voice | Wed 25th November 2015 - 12:10 pm

 

Tim Farron has been writing today in the Huffington Post.

The simple fact is that nearly half of the cuts George Osborne will make aren’t necessary to get spending under control. Instead that are motivated by an ideological drive to shrink the state. That’s a big departure from the decisions Liberal Democrats took in Coalition.

He outlines the five things that he would like to see in the review:

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