By Chris Bowers
| Wed 15th January 2025 - 12:59 pm
They say that to be a Liberal you have to be an incorrigible optimist. Yet, even with a record number of Lib Dem MPs, it’s hard to be optimistic in a global political environment witnessing the onward march of populism.
But what if discovering a seam of hope and optimism and representing it in British politics was in fact the best way of countering the rise of populism? With a tired and irresponsible government making way after 14 years for a new administration with an awful inheritance that’s made some errors in its first few months, it’s difficult to see where any optimism is going to come from. Then again, if any is to emerge, it’s likely to be from that optimistic creed known as Liberalism.
That is the underlying premise behind the latest in the series of Green Book podcasts, which has seen discussions among leading liberal figures on a range of subjects. For the series’ first post-election podcast, the subject was the less easily defined issue of ‘hope and optimism’, and the discussion brought together the Lib Dem health select committee chair Layla Moran, the former minister Lynne Featherstone, and the professor of history and liberalism Timothy Garton Ash, with me as moderator.
Again hosted by LibDem Podcasts, listen in to their discussion on all the main platforms or watch here:
A group of Liberal Democrats have called on Keir Starmer to back Lib Dem MP Roz Savage’s Climate and Nature Bill when it comes up in Parliament on 24 January. In a letter signed by 58 MPs and Peers they say:
We, Liberal Democrats, commend your and the Government’s determination to elevate the UK’s global climate and nature leadership. However, without legislation that unites our climate and nature plans, they will continue to be developed in isolation. This means your clean energy and nature restoration ambitions may fail—and, equally worryingly—may make both crises worse.
There is, however, a golden opportunity for you and the Government to showcase cross-party consensus on the need for an integrated approach to the climate-nature crisis. The CAN Bill would deliver a joined-up framework, ensuring that Britain meets its international commitments for climate and nature, as part of expediting your plans to build a nature positive, net zero economy.
Roz’s Bill should have a five hour debating slot on 24th January.
The Climate and Nature Bill is guaranteed a five-hour Parliamentary debate during its second reading on 24 January 2025. It already has the backing of some 250 Parliamentarians, including Sir Ed Davey, Carla Denyer, and Zac Goldsmith. It enjoys the support of 10,000s of members of the public, more than 1,100 businesses and organisations, as well as 1,000 climate and health experts
High-profile endorsers include Co-Operative Bank, The Body Shop, Oxfam, Save British Farming, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Ecotricity, The Wildlife Trusts and Triodos Bank.
Unless this Bill gets Government time, it is unlikely to become law. This would be a very easy win for Starmer and Labour so let’s hope they see sense.
The party’s review of the General Election campaign has been published this morning, so we can all put our feet up in front of the fire on a cold Winter’s afternoon and digest its findings.
The review was written by a panel chaired by Tim Farron. The other members were Cllr Ade Adeyemo, Paul Farthing, Cllr Donna Harris, Cllr Emma Holland-Lindsay, Mike O’Carroll and Cllr Sally Pattle.
In an email to members, Tim Farron said:
We have returned to the House of Commons as the third largest party, a real force to be reckoned with under Ed’s leadership.
While it goes without saying, nevertheless it is important to be said, the result was exceptional. As Chair of the Review, I offer my full and unreserved praise to Ed and to every single member, helper, donor and staff member who helped make it happen.
However, it would be foolish to not take the opportunity to explore what we could do differently next time to help make sure the next General Election result is even better than the last.
Our recommendations fall into three groupings:
How to repeat and expand our target seat successes, especially if the next General Election is in less favourable circumstances;
How to broaden our successes so that while targeting wins us seats our other activities strengthen the party across the country; and
Improving key internal processes, especially our Westminster candidates system.
There are challenging recommendations in our Review.
They will require of us all a willingness to be adaptable to change. However, none of the recommendations are written to be a criticism of past actions. They are based on review submissions and interviews and a strong desire of the Review team to ensure our strategy and processes are ready for the challenges ahead. We will also be following up with some further specific recommendations regarding membership.
We should be under no doubt there are difficult times ahead. While our greatly improved standing in Parliament offers a shining beacon of liberalism, across the UK and the world, extremism and populism are sadly becoming the norm. We, as a party, have the antidote to this, but we need to be election-ready for the fight ahead.
I am going to make a cup of tea and start reading through the document. I’ll put my thoughts in a new post.
Tim has also been talking to the Guardian about one of recommendations, namely that we shouldn’t have some sort of anti Tory progressive alliance. He said:
We are starting the starting the year strong with a gain in North Devon DC, the only by-election held this week. In the Instow ward, Cllr Becky Coombs, who previously stood an independent, represented the Lib Dems this time around and came first comfortably over the Tories! Congratulations to Becky and the North Devon team for the win.
North Devon DC, Instow Liberal Democrat (Becky Coombs): 197 (38.1%, new) Conservative: 166 (32.1%, +1.8%) Reform: 88 (17.0%, new) Independent: 49 (9.5%, new) Green Party: 17 (3.3%, -11.1%)
As someone from a British Pakistani background, it is deeply troubling to see how the far-right in this country, who once championed Brexit under the guise of sovereignty, now eagerly submit to the influence of figures like Elon Musk. When Musk undermines our Prime Minister and Parliament, he disregards the hard-won sovereignty that defines Britain. It is a stark reminder of how quickly some are willing to hand over our national integrity to those who have no stake in our history or values.
Musk’s support for figures like Tommy Robinson and Andrew Tate highlights the dangerous path the far-right is taking. Robinson, notorious for mortgage fraud and for jeopardising legal proceedings, represents a fringe that thrives on division and fear. Andrew Tate, who aspires to be Prime Minister but couldn’t spell it correctly, has a history of promoting controversial views and faces serious allegations of human trafficking and sexual assault.
The issue of grooming gangs is deeply personal and crucial. It’s important to remember that such heinous acts transcend race or religion and must be universally condemned. Statistics show that grooming and sexual exploitation are pervasive problems that cut across all communities. It is disheartening to see these crimes used as fodder for divisive rhetoric by those like Musk and his followers.
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage, once hailed as the “messiah” of the Reform Party, now seems more like a “naughty boy” from Monty Python. The confusion within the Reform Party only underscores their lack of coherence and vision. Farage’s fluctuating stance and the party’s failure to find consistent leadership only highlight their instability.
We’ve just heard the sad news that Lib Dem peer Jenny Randerson died yesterday at her home in Cardiff at the age of 76.
Welsh Lib Dem Leader Jane Dodds said:
I am deeply saddened by the news of Jenny Randerson’s passing.
Jenny dedicated her life to serving the people of Cardiff and Wales. From free entry to Wales’s national museums to the decision to build Wales Millennium Centre, her work as a minister left an indelible mark on our politics and society.
She will be deeply missed by her family, friends, colleagues, and the many individuals whose lives she touched through her public service.
The Lib Dem Lords tweeted:
Our hearts are full of grief and sadness today at the passing of our own Jenny Randerson. Jenny was a great friend and colleague to us all, and worked so hard for the Lib Dem group in the Lords, as she’d done for the Party the whole of her life. She was one of the very best.
Jenny was kind, wise and had immense judgement – which she used for good throughout her life. We were so lucky to have her as part of the Lib Dem family – in Wales, in the Lords, and nationally. Salutes and love, Jenny. Diolch yn fawr iawn.
We send our love and sympathy to Jenny’s husband Peter, their children and grandchildren and wider family and all who were close to her.
While a cautious Labour government is worrying about former Labour voters who moved to Reform UK at the General Election and Conservatives are split between those who see the Faragists as friends and those who see them as enemies., Liberal Democrats have a clear moral responsibility to fight them hard and defeat them.
Much has been written about the exploitation of grievances fuelling far right advances on both sides of the Atlantic and within the EU. While we have to take seriously the hurts many are experiencing and the sense of lostness in the face of collapsing public services which threatens civil society, we have to overcome the divisive hate-mongers. Labour say this is their mission but they have strange ways of showing it. So it’s up to us.
In the pre-Christmas weeks the Yorkshire and the Humber Region explicitly encouraged members and supporters to get stuck into a run of local by-elections saying “Reform is spreading divisive rhetoric and we’re working hard to offer a better vision for our communities”.
There was an interesting sequence of results.
On 28th November we had a shock gain in Woodhouse, Sheffield with a 10 vote margin over Reform and Labour pushed into third place.
Also on 28th a strong Lib Dem defence in York gave us three times the vote of the Tory in second place. Reform came third with Labour fourth.
On 12th December Reform took a seat from Labour in Merseyside (with no Lib Dem candidate). Meanwhile in West and South Yorkshire Reform failed to take seats in Featherstone, Wakefield and Dodworth, Barnsley. Labour held Featherstone but a large increase in the Lib Dem vote pushed Reform into third place. In Dodworth a strong Lib Dem hold secured twice as many votes as Reform with Labour in third place.
In some respects we have been here before. In 2006 the BNP came within a hundred votes of taking the Eccleshill, Bradford seat, which a few years later I was to represent on the City Council. We were determined to push them back. In 2007 it was not difficult to persuade voters that the Lib Dems were best placed to defeat the far right and we had a good track record to show that we could offer something much, much better. With people who usually voted for other parties coalescing around the Lib Dem candidate we had our biggest ever margin of victory. We secured nearly twice as many votes as the BNP in second place with Labour third.
Ed Davey has released a Christmas message which contains a clip of him performing “Twas the night before Christmas” with his “Love is Enough” partners, the Bath Philarmonia at a concert in Bath last month.
Congratulations to Shaffaq Mohammed and Mark Pack who have been appointed to the House of Lords!
Cllr Shaffaq Mohammed has been Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group on Sheffield Council for 13 years and was a former Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire and the Humber. He was a youth worker before he got directly involved in politics.
Back in 2011, he wrote about his story, from a boy in Kashmir to Leader of Sheffield Lib Dems. More recently he has been chairing a Carers’ Commission for Ed Davey, developing policy which has been so prominent in our campaigning as a party.
Dr Mark Pack has been no stranger to Lib Dem Voice, having been one of our founding editors and a prolific contributor over the years. His term of office as President of the Liberal Democrats comes to an end next year.
His early involvement with the party was at Lib Dem HQ where he served as Head of Innovations, bringing the party into the digital age. Although Mark has never stood for political office, he has acted as an energetic campaigner behind the scenes, developing real expertise in political campaigning, polling and electoral law.
Once again, we end the year with more Liberal Democrat MPs, more Liberal Democrat council leaders and more Liberal Democrat councillors than we started the year. We also have in Ed Davey the main party leader who consistently comes out best in the polls.
You have already heard many statistics from myself and others about that progress, so this time I will simply share perhaps my favourite. There are now 25 Liberal Democrat MPs with a majority over 10,000… and just 5 (!) Conservatives.
That is a huge tribute to the personal vote built up by so many of our campaigners, supported by people’s kind collective efforts across the party … and a sign of just how much political trouble the Conservatives are still in. Trouble that Labour has been remarkably quick to run into too. It is impressive how many Liberal Democrat campaigners have been out in the cold and rain, winning council by-elections and building support with campaigns on topics such as the Winter Fuel Allowance.
Willis Marshall’s dramatic win for us in Sheffield recently captured much of the current state of our politics. A cracking Lib Dem campaign and candidate, scoring a 27% vote share increase to take a seat off the Labour Party in an area where we had not won before – and in the process, seeing off Reform – who surged up into second place – by just 10 votes, while the Conservative vote fell by three-quarters. In other words – our areas of success spreading, holding Labour to account and winning ourselves, rather than leaving the political space for the populists to fill.
Such successes are only possible thanks to the generous combined efforts of our members, staff, donors and volunteers. A deep thank you to everyone who has contributed to our successes this year, and the very best of luck for the challenges to come next year. But before that, I hope everyone gets a good break over Christmas and New Year.
Next steps in the party’s strategy
Work is starting on developing our new strategy for this Westminster Parliamentary cycle. How do we build on our success in electing 72 MPs this July and making gains in every round of local elections in the last Parliament? How do we spread our success more widely? And what do we need to change about how we operate to achieve that?
It’s clearly Consultation Season in the Party because members have had an email inviting them to contribute to the Federal Policy Committee’s Policy review by 6 January.
In the email, Ed Davey says:
In July, millions of people put their trust in the Liberal Democrats, many of them for the first time. They have handed us an exciting opportunity and a humbling responsibility.
So now we must continue to lead the way, with big, bold policies to tackle the challenges facing our country in the years ahead. Not just clearing up the enormous mess left by the Conservatives, but building the fair, free and open society we all believe in.
That’s why our Federal Policy Committee (FPC) has set up a new working group to develop a strategic programme for renewing our policy in the years ahead.
We want to hear from you, to help chart our course towards a policy platform that serves us well as we tackle the priorities of the British people; be a responsible opposition to the Government; finish the job against the Conservatives; and paint a clear vision of the more liberal Britain we want to build.
As a first step, we want to hear from you what are the most important areas for us to focus on, to help guide our work over the coming months.
I’ll freely admit that I’ve been a bit sceptical about the campaign to rejoin the European Union. Not because I don’t believe that we should be within the fold rather than outside it but rather, I felt that we needed to be clear as a nation about what we really wanted of the relationship. Also, having put our neighbours through the psychodrama that was Brexit, they needed to be confident that we really meant it before attempting to negotiate a return.
The Party itself has struggled with determining a campaigning stance. Those who joined the Party as a campaigning vehicle to overturn the 2016 referendum have mostly sought an avowedly pro-Rejoin stance, whilst others, more cautious about losing potential voters, have soft-pedalled such a stance whilst indicating their support for an eventual return. The fairly disastrous campaigns of 2017 and 2019 reinforced the sense of caution.
But the news that polling by the European Council for Foreign Relations suggests that British voters are now willing to accept free movement as part of the conditions for rejoining the Single Market, perhaps changes the game.
There is a truth universally acknowledged that if you want to go through the motions of consulting people, but you don’t really want to encourage them to respond to you, you slip out a consultation, say, in the second week in December when nobody is really thinking about the issue in hand and close it on 3rd January.
I’m minded of the consultation process for the destruction of earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass as outlined by the brilliant Douglas Adams in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”
But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
So this is a roundabout way of saying that the Federal Board has slipped out a consultation on the party’s Internal Election Regulations in the second week of December that closes on 3rd January.
By doing so, they give off vibes that they are going through the motions of consultation. They want to know whether we think a larger threshold of nominations is needed. They haven’t set a figure, but will look at the result of the consultation and bring a proposal to Spring Conference. That would mean the changes would be in place for the next elections in Autumn next year.
Within the next few weeks the Labour government will publish its promised white paper on Devolution. Reports so far suggest it will extend combined authorities with directly-elected mayors across the rest of England, abolish the remaining district councils and move to unitary councils covering parts of combined authorities – in practice a new two-tier system in which the relationship between combined-authority mayors and unitary councils will remain to be settled. There’s unlikely to be any significant change in financial control from the centre or tax reform. A move towards three-year settlements for central funding of local and combined authorities is more likely.
I’m not an expert on local government; nor do I know whether our party yet has an agreed position on how to respond. I accept that the mayoral model in London works well – with a London Assembly to hold the mayor to account, and London borough councils to provide local services and representation. The mayoral model is suitable for conurbations – though it needs (as in London) to be balanced by a representative assembly, with multiple local councils constituting it. But I’m doubtful whether a similar model suits the rest of England.
In Yorkshire the consensus among MPs and council leaders was strongly for a regional body and local councils, if necessary also with elected mayors for the conurbations of West and South Yorkshire. Instead the last government imposed upon us combined authorities both in North and East Yorkshire, with only two elected councils in each. The imposition of a unitary authority across North Yorkshire has replaced district councils that covered distinct communities – Harrogate, Craven, Scarborough and Whitby, Richmondshire, and Selby – with a geographically vast area with a much smaller number of councillors. York, however, was left outside, so an elected mayor and combined authority has therefore been imposed on two very different local authorities. The combined authority and mayor for East Yorkshire will similarly sit over only two existing local authorities.
As I stood up in Parliament to ask my first-ever question at Prime Minister’s Questions, I couldn’t stop thinking about Cody Fisher and his family. Cody was just 23 years old when he was stabbed to death on the dance floor of The Crane nightclub in Birmingham on Boxing Day 2022. What should have been a fun night out with friends ended in tragedy because of failings that could—and should—have been avoided.
Cody’s death has left an unimaginable hole in the lives of those who loved him. A talented young footballer, he had his whole future ahead of him. But a deadly weapon—a zombie knife—was smuggled into the venue, bypassing what the court later described as “cursory” security checks, despite over 2,000 people being there that night. It’s hard to comprehend how such a basic safety measure was overlooked, and it’s even harder to accept that no action has yet been taken to prevent something like this from happening again.
Since Cody’s murder, his family, and in particular his mum, Tracey Fisher, has been incredibly brave in her fight to make sure no other family goes through what hers has endured. Tracey is calling for “Cody’s Law,” which would make it mandatory for nightclubs and similar venues to install metal detectors and have bleed kits on site. These are simple, common-sense measures that could save lives.
So the first chart announcement since Love is Enough, the song by young carers featuring Ed Davey was released is out. It would melt even the most permafrosted heart.
It was a long list of holds for this week’s by-elections as only 1 out of 10 seats switched hands, where Lib Dems snatched a seat out of Labour in Sheffield City Council. Labour defended their other 7 seats, albeit losing a hefty amount of votes in almost all seats; the Lib Dems also defended the 2 remaining seats.
For the only gain this week, the young Cllr Willis Marshall brought the Lib Dems from fourth place to first in the Woodhouse ward in Sheffield City Council. Coming from the single digits, Willis and the Sheffield team more than quadrupled the Lib Dem vote share to 33% this time around and won the seat! Congratulations to the Willis and the team for the hard work put in to achieve this momentous result.
Sheffield City Council, Woodhouse Liberal Democrat (Willis Marshall): 1018 (33.0%, +26.8%) Reform: 1008 (32.7%, new) Labour: 650 (21.1%, -36.8%) Conservative: 168 (5.0%, -9.5%) Green Party: 153 (5.4%, -4.5%) TUSC: 56 (1.8%, -1.0%) The Social Democratic Party: 33 (1.1% , new)
In the nearby City of York Council, the Lib Dems comfortably defended its seat with 64% of the vote, towering the second place Conservatives. In the Haxby & Wigginton ward, Cllr Richard Watson and the team grew the vote from just over one-half to almost two thirds of the voting base. Congrats and thank you to Richard and the local team for the tremendous win!
By Caron Lindsay
| Wed 27th November 2024 - 10:30 pm
Well that headline is a sentence I never thought I’d write.
And I have to admit that when I first saw the press release announcing it, I rather involuntarily invoked the name of the person we celebrate at this time of year at volume. Then I thought “No, please, not Sweet Caroline.”
However, I remembered that generosity is key to the spirit of Christmas and when I looked into it some more, I discovered that, actually, Ed’s collaboration with Bath Philarmonia’s Young Carers’ Choir is pretty decent. “Love is enough” falls into the category of heartwarming Christmas songs rather than the crazy ones. Though given some of the things Ed did during the General Election, I could be forgiven for fearing it would be the latter.
The song has been written by the young carers themselves to celebrate the bond between themselves and those they care for.
The result is uplifting and festive, and perhaps just the right side of saccharine to appeal to Christmas listeners. It does not, however, feature much audible input from Davey, whose contributions are slightly buried in the glossy mix.
A blessing and a curse of a democracy is that elections keep on coming around. So while this year has been an exhausting one of election campaigns already, we also need to be turning our eyes to the local elections coming up in May.
Most of the seats up in May were last contested when the Conservatives were still on an electoral high back in 2021. Therefore they provide us with an important opportunity to follow up on our major gains from the Conservatives at both local and Westminster level since 2021. They also provide us with an important opportunity to continue to grow our strength more broadly, especially in areas where, now with a Labour government in Westminster, new possibilities are opening up.
But there is one sure-fire, 100% guaranteed, rock-solid way of repelling voters from us, and it is one we use far too often.
It is not having a Liberal Democrat on the ballot paper. Zero votes for the party guaranteed.
Both Labour and the Conservatives, for example, get very close now to having a full slate of candidates in local elections. We do not.
The good news is that since in the last Parliament we have collectively started focusing on really raising our candidate numbers in council contests, we have made good progress, both for by-elections and for the May rounds of elections.
Standing candidates is not only about credibility and relevance. It is also the way to get more people into the habit of regularly voting for the Liberal Democrats – a crucial step in building the sort of larger core vote for the party that will help us succeed more often.
With us having regained our third place in the House of Commons, continuing that progress in candidate numbers to help further establish ourselves is even more important next May.
If you have local elections coming up in your area, there are great training materials and supporting documents on how to increase your candidate numbers, and how to run a proper approval process. Drop me a line if you need help finding the support you need.
With the ‘Tractor Tax’ protests filling the news for several days, yesterday delivered an email from Lib Dem HQ informing me that our MPs are demanding that the tax be axed. I was both surprised and disappointed to see our MPs siding with some very wealthy vested interests on this issue. It is clear that investment in farmland is being used by some as a deliberate ploy to dodge inheritance tax, and beyond romanticising the “family farm” and way of life, I’ve yet to hear a convincing moral or economic argument as to why farmers uniquely deserve a better deal on inheritance tax than you or me. And even after Labour’s proposed changes, the IHT regime for farms still remains far better than that available to almost anyone else.
Ed Davey and Tim Farron tell us that farming is vital to the country, that rural communities have been taken for granted, and that Brexit and trade deals that undercut British farmers with food produced to lower standards is a disaster for them. All that is true, but it has absolutely nothing to do with inheritance tax, and even if Labour change their minds tomorrow, the very real challenges that British farmers face will remain. I find it curious (or perhaps not) that tax is the issue that has brought out farmers to protest, whipped up by some multi-millionaires and a right wing press that is ideologically opposed to all inheritance tax in principle.
If we accept that genuine farming families are deserving of special treatment to allow farms to be passed down tax-free within the family, there are ways that Labour’s plans could be amended to ease that, but Lib Dem MPs are siding with tax-dodging multi-millionaires to reverse the change entirely. They are wrong to do so.
Lib Dem Women and Equalities spokesperson Christine Jardine has issued a message for Trans Awareness Week which runs until Thursday. She said:
Today is the beginning of Trans Awareness Week. It’s an opportunity for us to celebrate trans people, acknowledge the challenges they face, and reflect on how we as a society can work together to improve trans people’s lives.
In decades past, the UK has led the world in advancing equality for all LGBT+ people – with the Liberal Democrats playing a particularly key role in driving that progress forward.
However, too many trans people still face discrimination and hostility simply for being who they are. Sadly, the fight for equality must go on.
The figures are stark. The number of hate crimes recorded against trans people have skyrocketed by 52% since 2020/21. Young trans people face the highest rates of homelessness among the LGBT+ community. Not to mention the shocking reality that on average, trans people are being forced to wait more than 7 years to get the specialist healthcare they deserve.
Let me be clear – Liberal Democrats will always stand up for the rights of everyone in the LGBT+ community, including trans people.
There’s been much speculation recently, fuelled by leaks from within Government, about the new Labour Government’s upcoming English Devolution Bill. If the reports are accurate, the bill could bring significant changes to the way local government is structured in England. While Labour’s intentions may be aimed at decentralising power, there are worrying indications that some of these proposals could undermine local democracy rather than empower it.
As Liberal Democrats, we have always championed genuine devolution that puts real power in the hands of local communities. But while we welcome the opportunity to engage in a discussion about devolution, we need to tread carefully. If these leaked proposals are anything to go by, there are some aspects that should give us serious pause. Labour seems committed, for instance, to creating new regional mayors across the country—a model that doesn’t necessarily fit all communities and may lead to the abolition of district councils in the process.
It’s 10 years since the stunning and emotive display of ceramic poppies, one for each allied soldier killed in the First World War, at the Tower of London.
Today, the nation marks Remembrance Sunday, 110 years after the war broke out and almost 106 years since it ended.
Ed Davey said:
Remembrance Sunday is such an important day for all of us. We remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country, for our peace and for the future we all share.
We must never forget their sacrifice nor can we forget the veterans, many of whom will march past the Cenotaph today. They still bear the scars, both mental and physical, from their service, and our country can and must do much more to support them.
Alex Cole-Hamilton spoke at Holyrood this week and remembered not only those British soldiers who had died in conflict but Ukrainians who are fighting to protect our freedoms.
World politics is going to be rough in the next few years – and British politics will be increasingly difficult, too. Trump’s victory means that the USA’s role in global affairs will be highly unpredictable. But we can predict that American influence will not be constructive on a range of global issues, from combatting climate change to managing the world economy and containing conflicts, and is unlikely to be affected by consideration for British or European concerns. So how do we respond?
Ed Davey’s first response to Trump’s victory was spot on. We need to defend and promote liberal values and prioritise rebuilding closer relations with our European neighbours. Neither of those are easy. Illiberal movements are gaining ground in many democratic countries, including within the EU. Liberal democracy gains most support when economies are growing, societies are stable and international relations are peaceful. Even without the added complications of an incoherent and unfriendly US Administration, the challenges of preventing catastrophic climate change, of coping with the mass movement of people that climate change and regional conflicts are already driving, of moving towards a sustainable global economy and resisting Chinese and Russian expansionism would be hard to manage – and harder to persuade the British electorate to share the cost.
There will no doubt be a flood of analyses of why a majority of American voters supported Trump. But discontent at the economic and social disruption of their lives, and disillusion with the ‘elites’ who – as they see it – allowed disruptive change to sweep from outside through their communities, were major factors. Those discontents are widespread in Britain as well. The ‘left behind’ in northern and coastal towns feel similarly abandoned by educated elites and multinational corporations. You Gov tracker polls show that the answer to the question ‘Are members of Parliament in touch with the public or not?’ has consistently shown around 70% answering ‘out of touch’ and 10-12% ‘in touch’ over the past five years. Those in the Brexit Referendum who were saying ‘I want my country back’ were expressing a similar sense of loss to Trump supporters who want to ‘Make America Great Again.’
American presidential elections in days of yore were pretty simple. We all went to bed at our usual time and then when we woke up in the morning, we knew who was going to be President.
And then Bush v Gore 2000 happened and it all took a bit longer as we learned about things like “Hanging Chads” and how they affected the vote counts in Florida. It took until 12 December until the Supreme Court stopped the recount and Gore conceded the next day.
In 2020, we spent four long nights and three and a half long days constantly refreshing CNN and agonising in WhatsApp chats before it was clear to everyone except Donald Trump and his followers that Joe Biden had won.
This year I’m not sure I have a big enough cushion to hide behind as the results come in. But before we get too absorbed in the details, take a minute to have a good laugh at Kamala’s appearance on last night’s Saturday Night Live. Pitch perfect:
We are probably not going to know for a while after the polls close whether the US will have a President who will respect women’s rights, put more money back in the hands of the poorest and grow the economy, or someone who will give to his billionaire mates, pursue policies that see more women die because they can’t get medical treatment if they have a miscarriage, and threaten US democracy itself.
The conventional wisdom amongst commentators at the moment is that Donald Trump will get his second term in the White House. Let’s hope they have it as wrong as they had it in 2016 when they all thought Hillary was going to win. We have to remember that part of the reason for the Democrats losing back then was because they were so convinced they were going to win that they stopped spending money in the swing states while Donald Trump spent a fortune on wall to wall advertising.
The Democrats are not making that mistake again. The Harris/Walz campaign has been concentrating on the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona. The election will likely be decided on tens of thousands of votes in those places. It’s a bit like how our elections are decided in 100 or so marginal seats across the country except on a bigger scale.
She’s had some help in the past week from Scottish Lib Dem Leader who went out there with some friends (at their own expense) to knock on doors. It’s not the first time he has been out. He turned out to be a good luck charm for Obama in Virginia in 2008. He made some observations on Twitter this week about his trip an the prospects in the election:
The field campaign team there are exceptional but they are utterly exhausted and driving hard for the finish line, I’m proud to know them. They certainly put me to work in getting out the vote.
With over 1k doors knocked across 9 communities in Lackawanna county, PA, I got to see a lot of the Scranton area in stunning autumnal beauty. These are warm, resilient communities, but in many ways they have cause to feel left behind.
This is an exceptionally tight election, everyone knows that, but I’ve never seen tribalism run quite so deep before. Those houses without partisan lawn signs are in the minority and this election is dividing communities and even families, like never before.
A standout highlight for me was getting to meet Tim Walz in person, but above that I will never forget the warmth of the people I met on the doors of Pennsylvania.
My assessment? She can absolutely do it, but turnout is everything.
‘Read my lips: no new taxes’; ‘we will reduce net immigration to the tens of thousands’; ‘we pledge not to increase tuition fees’. Promises easily made in an election campaign. A source of endless regret in government.
There will be endless regret from Labour’s manifesto commitment not to raise tax rates on taxes accounting for three quarters of tax revenue. There is an urgent and compelling need to raise taxes in the coming budget for reasons of fiscal prudence and to stem the decline in public services. Yet, despite having an enormous parliamentary majority, the government has denied itself a mandate properly to address these fundamental problems.
With Keir Starmer out of the country, it was down to the deputies to take the stage at Prime Minister’s Questions. Angela Rayner and Daisy Cooper put in their first appearance of the new Parliament in their new roles. For Conservative Oliver Dowden, it was his last in the role. There was very funny love in with menaces between him and Rayner in their exchanges. It was a bit like a seaside comedy show. The serious stuff came when Daisy asked her two questions.
Every winter, our NHS is overwhelmed.
Will the Prime Minister consider the Liberal Democrats proposal for an NHS winter task force, to put an end to the cycle of patients paying the price for the social care crisis left by the Conservatives? @LibDemDaisy#PMQspic.twitter.com/7UqpodJHzs
May I associate myself and the Liberal Democrats with the Deputy Prime Minister’s remarks about Chris Hoy, and about all those involved in the train crash?
Our NHS is bracing itself for a winter crisis. One of the causes of the winter crisis every year is that there are thousands of people in hospitals who are fit to go home, but who cannot be discharged because there are not the care workers in place to enable people to recover at home or in a care home. Will the Deputy Prime Minister consider the Liberal Democrats’ idea of an NHS winter taskforce to winter-proof our NHS, end the cycle of the winter crisis, and put to an end the scandal of hospital patients paying the price of the social care crisis left by the Conservatives?
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments, and I share her desire to ensure that care workers are given the respect and importance that they deserve. They are critical to solving the problems in our national health service. The Labour party will create a national care service, and we are launching our first ever fair pay agreement for care professionals to boost recruitment and retention. We must get the NHS back on its feet after the disaster of the Conservatives, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will have more to say on that in the Budget.
Daisy kept to the same theme for the second question, talking of the dangers to the care sector of increasing employers’ National Insurance contributions, something she had mentioned in her Sky News interview on Sunday:
I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for her answer. We stand ready, as a party of constructive opposition, to work with the Government to fix our social care system. However, a measure that could make it harder for us to keep the carers that we so desperately need would be an increase in employers’ national insurance contributions. Were that measure to go ahead, it would affect millions of small businesses, including 18,000 small care providers. Will the Deputy Prime Minister assure the House that nothing in the Budget will make it harder for vulnerable people to access the care workers and the care that they desperately need?
A bit of flannel from Rayner in return, but at least the job of setting out our position had been done:
Again, I will not speculate on the Budget, not least with the Chancellor sat beside me. To reiterate what the Chancellor and the Prime Minister have said, this Budget will recognise that working people of this country and enterprise in this country have been hard-hit by 14 years of the Conservatives. We will rebuild Britain, and we will grow our economy to pay for our public services.
Rayner had to face another three Lib Dems in the session. This is great to see, and likely to be more commonplace now that we make up more than 10% of the House.
First up was Monica Harding who had a heartbreaking story of a young boy in her constituency who has been out of school for a year because they don’t have the right special needs provision for him.
Today in PMQs I called on the Govt to take immediate action to address the crisis in SEND by properly funding it in the budget. In Surrey 1800 children are at home rather than school bc their needs cannot be met & are waiting 2 yrs for an ADHD diagnosis. It is a scandal @LibDemspic.twitter.com/lWLrJHGvUA
Charlie from my constituency is an eight-year-old boy with an autism diagnosis who has been out of school for almost a year. He is one of 1,800 children in Surrey missing school because of a lack of appropriate special educational needs provision. Will the Government commit to ending this scandal by properly funding special educational needs provision in next week’s Budget, so that children like Charlie, in my constituency of Esher and Walton and beyond, are no longer let down?
Angela Rayner was sympathetic but had nothing concrete to offer:
Liberal Democrats will be hoping that the nightmare of the US presidential campaign will be over on November 5th, with a clear win for Kamala Harris, accepted by Donald Trump, leading Republicans and state and federal courts. But at present that looks the least likely outcome. More likely by far will be either a contested result, after chaotic events during the voting and state counts, or a narrow Trump victory with chaotic consequences for US politics and foreign policy. Either will have major implications for British politics and foreign policy.
The continuing rumble of opinion polls suggests a virtual tie between Harris and Trump, with the outcome dependent on who turns out among the small minority of undecideds. Challenges to names on voting registers are under way in several states. Counting may well be disrupted; there were some assaults on election counts four years ago, and the atmosphere has become more fraught since then. Republican local organisations are ready to use the courts to challenge any contestable declaration or hint of malpractice. We may not be sure who has won for some time. And the consequences of a Trump win are as uncertain as the candidate’s utterances have become. So how should we react to what will be an assault on the principles of liberal democracy and on the transatlantic partnership which has been at the core of the UK’s position in the world since 1941?
One Liberal Democratic theme, I suggest, must be to remind disillusioned citizens in this country of the importance of constitutional institutions and limited government, and the dangers of sliding down the road towards populist rule. Britain has just emerged from several years of chaotic government, with a populist prime minister attempting to prevent Parliament from returning from a recess when he had been in office himself for only s few months. We have witnessed right-wing attacks on our supreme court, an Elections Act that lifted constraints on political donations and restricted the autonomy of the Electoral Commission, and Conservative ministers supporting conspiracy theories about ‘liberal elites’. We now have a Labour government which has won the most disproportional parliamentary majority since 1832: 63.4% of MPs from 33.7% of the votes cast, on a worryingly low turnout of 58%. Public trust in ‘Westminster politics’ has sunk to the lowest recorded point since opinion surveys began. The potential for an anti-democratic backlash, if this government fails to improve both economic growth and public services, is high.
Daisy Cooper was on Sunday with Trevor Phillips on Sky News. As our new Treasury Spokesperson, she was asked about what she wanted to see in the Budget.
But first, she was asked whether she accepted the Government’s narrative about the £22 billion black hole in the public finances.
She replied that there was no doubt that Conservatives left the economy in a mess. There may be an argument about the 22 billion number but what people want to know is if public services are going to get better. Are they going to get the health and social care they need?
She said that we were deeply uncomfortable about the rumoured increase in National Insurance employers’ contribution because of the effect on smaller businesses. In particular, she mentioned how this might affect small care companies and that might lead to even more care home closures and increase the crisis in care.
However, we would support taxing banks and gambling companies and changing fiscal rules to allow more investment to build more schools and hospitals.
Another rumour is that fuel duty is going to go up for the first time in 15 years. Daisy said that we were concerned about the impact of doing this during a cost of living crisis. If there was a viable alternative with good public transport it might be easier to stomach. The burden of cleaning up the Tory mess should be on big companies, not on ordinary people.
She was pressed by Phillips about the effect of our proposals on taxing banks. What impact would that have on our savings and pensions? She answered that the four or five biggest banks made £40 billion in profit and we want to reverse the tax cuts they have had which could raise just a tenth of that, a small amount of money for them, to help turn our public services around.
She said that we would have to look at the budget as a whole but would likely vote against a rise in employers’ NI contribution.
The main Liberal Democrat priority for the Budget was to see health and social care. Daisy talked about her own experience of serious illness and her Crohn’s diagnosis:
Christine Jardine, who is our Women and Equalities spokesperson, will be bringing a consultation paper to Spring Conference on LGBT+ policy. This post is on the Lib Dem website.
Social justice is at the heart of everything we believe in as Liberal Democrats.
Not just social justice for some, but for everyone.
That is why we work so hard to ensure that we can deliver positive change for our often victimised and vulnerable LGBT+ community.
From Ed Davey moving the repeal of the abhorrent Section 28, to the tireless work of Liberal Democrat ministers like Lynne Featherstone in getting the Same Sex Marriage Act passed, our party has always been at the heart of many important steps towards equality.
But sadly there is still more to do.
Prejudice and discrimination are still far too often visited on the LGBT+ community.
Made worse by years of a Conservative government intent on using vulnerable people as pawns in their culture wars. Not to mention the heartbreaking reality that LGBT+ people are more likely to suffer from poor health outcomes, homelessness, and difficulties accessing public services.
Liberal Democrats want to build a country where nobody’s life chances are limited because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. That is why I will be producing a spokesperson’s paper, in my capacity as Women and Equalities Spokesperson, to outline what steps we need to take to make this a reality.
Jana “ our Federal party Constitution makes clear that, as a party, we reject all discrimination and prejudice based on religion or belief and that we respect the ...
Chris Nicholson I am not sure where Theakes gets his information but Lambeth Lib Dems are not in cahorts ( or cahoots) with the Greens. We are not in coalition with the Greens ...
Pete Roberts There is another key issue that still needs to be resolved, namely how the party and indeed the legal system, deal with the intersection of protected characteri...
Peter Davies That's a decision for Lambeth Lib Dems....
theakes Really there is no change.
Also what about where we are in cohorts with the Greens, should that not be ended forthwith, eg Lambeth...
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Councillor Samantha Williamson joins Lib Dems in Bolton
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Jana 
Chris Nicholson 
Pete Roberts 
Peter Davies 
theakes 