Tag Archives: general election 2017

The Voice

The campaign starts up again

By The Voice | Fri 26th May 2017 - 7:00 am

It’s the first day of national campaigning since the Manchester attack on Monday night.

For Tim Farron, it’s not an immediate return to hostilities. Instead, he’s going to Warrington to visit a Jonathan Ball/Tim Parry Peace Foundation in Warrington.

The Foundation was set up by the parents of the two boys who were killed by the Warrington Bomb in 1993.

Tim wants to learn about the charity’s work.

Later he will attend a remembrance service at a Mosque with the Ahmadiyya community in Manchester.

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Caron Lindsay

WATCH: Lib Dems replace Party Election Broadcast with personal message from Tim Farron about Manchester

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 25th May 2017 - 10:11 pm

Powerful stuff from Tim Farron tonight. We withdrew our scheduled Party Election Broadcast and replaced it with two and a half minutes of Tim talking about the Manchester attack and how it bringing people together, not creating the division the terrorists want.

He talked about the Manchester he loves and the experience of being at the vigil on Tuesday night.

It was a very heartfelt and moving monologue, an act of solidarity before the election campaign starts again in earnest tomorrow. It’s not going to win us seats, but it is a good thing for our country.

Watch it here. A transcript is below.

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Caron Lindsay

Online Champions – an election initiative from Your Liberal Britain

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 25th May 2017 - 10:25 am

Those nice people at Your Liberal Britain have already changed the way we do things as a party. Their initiatives  to help us create our vision of what a Liberal Britain could look like have been incorporated into the policy making process.

Now they are turning their hands to a new challenge for the General Election.

When you share something on social media, and it’s been liked by loads of people, have you had a look and seen whether it’s actually been liked or shared by someone who isn’t already a Liberal Democrat?

Social media can be a bit of an echo chamber. That’s why Your Liberal Britain has decided to tackle that to widen the reach of Lib Dem messages.

YLB’s founder Jim Williams told me:

The thinking behind the initiative is that thousands of Lib Dem supporters work hard every day to make the case for the Liberal Democrats online – but all too many struggle to break out of their echo chambers. And they often lack access to the party’s messages, not knowing which topic to best tackle at any one time.

The Online Champions community empowers these activists to break out of their echo chambers and speak directly to voters, not just to their friends.

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Caron Lindsay

National campaigning to remain suspended tomorrow – but local campaigning can resume

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 23rd May 2017 - 9:41 pm

The party is advising candidates tonight that, while national campaigning remains suspended, local campaigning can resume tomorrow.

The  advice came in an email from Federal Campaigns and Elections Chair James Gurling who said:

 

Further to our advice this morning following the terrorist attack in Manchester, national campaigning will remain suspended tomorrow.

Like other parties we have agreed that local campaigning may resume with due sensitivity and at the discretion of local campaign managers.

We will continue to review the advice given on national and local campaigning.

So, take the lead from your local campaign manager and act accordingly.

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The Voice

General Election campaigning has been suspended

By The Voice | Tue 23rd May 2017 - 9:15 am

An email from the Chair of the Federal Campaigns and Elections Committee James Gurling has been sent  explaining what the suspension of campaigning in respect for the victims of the Manchester attack means:

By now you will all have seen and heard about the terrible events of yesterday. Our thoughts are with everyone affected by the tragic attack in Manchester.

We, along with the other political parties have agreed to suspend our campaigns until further notice.

That means until further notice, please do not carry out any public campaigning activity – that includes canvassing, campaigning online, leaflet delivery and any street stalls.

This site …

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Caron Lindsay

The SNP and the Tories are using the same playbook to delegitimise opposition and checks on their power

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 22nd May 2017 - 4:50 pm

There has been a very unfortunate trend in recent years of those in power condemning anyone who stands in their way. We all remember the failure of the Conservative Justice Secretary Liz Truss to stand up for the Supreme Court judges who upheld the law after the “enemies of the people” headline. However, that wasn’t the first time the judiciary had come under such attack. Back in 2011, Alex Salmond insulted Lord Hope, a judge who had found the Scottish Government to be wanting on human rights. As I wrote at the time:

Peter Cadder, whose case sparked the SNP’s casual quadrupling of pre-charge detention time in an afternoon last year, won his human rights case because, then a teenager, he had not had access to a lawyer before a police interrogation that led to his conviction for assault.  Now, to me, it seems eminently reasonable that people should have access to lawyers. A system that does not allow that is flawed. Rather than slag off judges and court judgements, surely the Scottish Justice Department would be better off comparing Scots law with European human rights law and sorting out where there could be problems. You could argue this should have been done years ago.

Alex Salmond is pandering to a Daily Fail type agenda with is comments and he needs to catch himself on.

The Tories and the right wing press are playing from the same playbook with their “saboteurs” and “enemies of the people” narrative as if they alone are the true diviners of the will of the people as if that is as immovable as Mount Everest. There’s a certain irony about those who claim to be all about enacting the will of the people zealously ensuring that the people don’t get a chance to mark their homework.

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NewsHound

Business leaders: Only Lib Dems are speaking for business and the people

By NewsHound | Mon 22nd May 2017 - 12:55 pm

In a letter, more than 50 business leaders, including Nicola Horlick and the founders of EBookers and Innocent Drinks, have said that they will be voting Liberal Democrat because of our stance on Brexit.

From the Times (£)

The 53 signatories who say they intend to vote Lib Dem include senior players in the investment and IT sectors, two industries that could be hit by a poor Brexit deal. They represent small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) rather than FTSE 100 companies.

“The Conservatives’ failure to even mention a transitional deal threatens Britain’s status as one of the best countries in the world with which to do business,” the letter reads. “While we may not have voted Liberal Democrat in the past and we may not agree with the party on all issues, they are now the only party speaking for business and the majority of Britons on the key issue at this election.”

Richard Reed, the co-founder of Innocent Drinks and board member of Britain Stronger in Europe, Dinesh Dhamija, the founder of the Ebookers travel site and the businesswoman Nicola Horlick are among the signatories.

In response, Vince Cable said:

The Liberal Democrats now have support from a large number of serious figures in the business community, showing that we are rapidly emerging as the party of business, both big and small.

Theresa May’s determination to take us out of the single market would devastate the financial sector, while taking us out of the customs union would cause incalculable disruption to manufacturing .

Theresa May herself warned of the Brexit dangers to our exports in a speech at Goldman Sachs. Since then she has taken on the agenda of Nigel Farage, who has understandably declared himself delighted with her.

That is scary. It is vital that the next parliament contains enough Liberal Democrat voices to argue for Britain’s future in the world’s most lucrative single market. The more Liberal Democrat MPs, the better the deal we can secure on Europe.

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Caron Lindsay

And the winner of the Scottish Leaders’ Debate is….a nurse

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 21st May 2017 - 9:57 pm

Yes, Willie was brilliant and we’ll come to that in a moment. But let’s hear it for this nurse who had Nicola Sturgeon on the ropes. Two weeks ago the First Minister led her MSPs to vote against an end to the pay freeze for Scottish nurses. The nurse in the audience spoke very movingly about having to use a food bank. She also talked about how demoralising working in the NHS was. Watch her here.

A few years ago, a friend of mine who’s a nurse really struggled to manage on her salary as a single parent so I know that what tonight’s nurse says rings true.

I also spent 51 days last Autumn watching exactly how hard and stressful work is for nurses. No matter how short-staffed they were and how rushed off their feet they were, they still managed to give my husband fantastic care. I was worried then about the effect that it was having on their health. Giving at 120% all the time is simply not sustainable.

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Caron Lindsay

Edinburgh West profile: Labour candidate accepts that voters will vote tactically to defeat the SNP

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 21st May 2017 - 10:58 am

Radio 4’s PM programme covered Edinburgh West the other night and the profile was surprising in some ways. The Labour candidate, Mandy Telford, was pretty candid about tactical voting to stop the SNP:

Labour is out there fighting for every vote but ultimately we are dead set against the SNP and their desire to have an unwanted second divisive independence referendum. That’s the message we are getting back on the doorsteps very strongly. People will use their votes in whatever way they want to defeat the SNP.

It’s a cleverly crafted comment. She’s obviously not endorsing any other candidate but she’s summed up the reality of the situation on the ground pretty well.

People want a decent MP who will champion what is important to them and fight their corner. In Edinburgh West they know that Lib Dems deliver on that score. They are also highly motivated to get the SNP and to do whatever it takes to do so. Here and elsewhere I have been staggered by the intensity of people’s desire to see the back of the nationalists for all sorts of reasons. It’s primarily independence, but they are also sick fed up of falling school standards and an NHS lurching from one crisis to another.

Our Christine Jardine had this to say.

People are looking for the party who are more likely to beat the SNP and in this election stopping that independence bandwagon is the most important thing.

Conservative and Labour voters recognise it’s the Liberal Democrats who can beat the SNP.

That was certainly backed up by two Tory voters who were interviewed saying that they were voting Lib Dem.

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NewsHound

Amna Ahmad on her life and why she wants to be a Lib Dem MP

By NewsHound | Sun 21st May 2017 - 9:30 am

There’s a super interview with Sutton and Cheam Lib Dem candidate Amna Ahmad in The Pool.

So, who are the Lib Dems now, I ask Ahmad when we meet for coffee. She answers by telling me her issues: she is, of course, against a hard Brexit; she campaigns for NHS funding and sits on Norman Lamb’s committee on the subject. She’s against grammar-school funding, but not grammar schools per se: “I want the comprehensives to have a fighting chance.” When I ask how she became a member, she recalls turning 18 the day before the Stop The War demo and identifying with then-party leader Charles Kennedy’s refusal to support war in Iraq.

But perhaps a more interesting question is: who is Amna Ahmad? When first campaigning in Brixton in 2013, she was accused of being an Oxford-educated careerist with a posh voice. And it was this depiction of her that made her decide to talk about her own life. Yes, she went to Oxford and, yes, her voice could be clarified as “posh”, but the real story goes something like this: Ahmad grew up in a violent house in one of London’s poorest boroughs, Lewisham. At 15, she called the police to report her father, who was arrested and taken into custody. She and her younger brother and sister were split up and put into care. Ahmad was in care for just a week, because she was turning 16. “‘You were on time every day for school’ was the only thing my teacher said to me about that week,” she laughs. Her brother and sister were only five and seven at the time, however. “It was heartbreaking. My brother went on hunger strike. There were issues around cultural sensitives. They made him eat bacon.”

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Caron Lindsay

Jo Cox tribute: Election campaigning to be halted for an hour in her memory

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 21st May 2017 - 8:09 am

Batley and Spen is a gathering of typically independent, no-nonsense and proud Yorkshire towns and villages. Our communities have been deeply enhanced by immigration, be it of Irish Catholics across the constituency or of Muslims from Gujarat in India or from Pakistan, principally from Kashmir. While we celebrate our diversity, what ​surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.

Those were the words of Jo Cox in her maiden speech to the House of Commons

Looking at that just now, I’ve just realised that her maiden speech took place just after the House had paid tribute to one of its former members, our Charles Kennedy, who had died two days before. What extraordinary talents those two people were.

Election campaigns are about the debate of different ideas. At their best they should be inspiring and uplifting and full of vision. But political activists of all parties have a lot in common – the dedication, the determination and the exhaustion for a start.

Tomorrow, though, there will be a pause in campaigning in Jo’s memory, a chance to reflect on the things that unite us rather than divide us. From the Guardian:

Party leaders will halt political activity and instead visit community projects. The parties have asked all their candidates to do the same.

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Caron Lindsay

What do you make of the “Vote her, get him” poster?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 20th May 2017 - 10:45 pm

Vince Cable launched a new Lib Dem campaign poster today.

This is how he explained it:

This week has been about manifestos

To understand what is going on you have to listen to the voices of the people who are Mrs May’s cheerleaders and admirers.

Nigel Farage. He purrs like an elder statesman, his job done.

He said of the Prime Minister “she is using exactly the words and phrases I have been using for 20 years. I’m thrilled”

He should be. She has adopted wholesale the UKIP model of Brexit. No half measures. Out of the Single Market. Out of the customs union. Out of all the sensible cooperation around science and environment. The agenda of the hard right.

And not just on Europe. Do you remember the man who smiled with President-elect Donald Trump in a gold-encrusted lift? Who used his good offices to secure a meeting for our Prime Minister. Her hand-holding. Backing for the Trump administration. The close bonding. The treat of a state visit to come. Not that it achieved anything. The tough American trade negotiators have made it clear that economic size, not sentiment, determines priorities: the EU before the UK.

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NewsHound

LibLink: Tim Farron: Lib Dems will give you a choice about the future

By NewsHound | Sat 20th May 2017 - 1:30 pm

In an article for the Times Red Box, Tim Farron points out the huge differences between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat visions for the future:

The contrast between the Liberal Democrat manifesto and the Conservative one couldn’t be starker. We would extend free school lunches to all primary school children and invest an extra £7 billion in schools and colleges, to make sure funding rises in line with both inflation and pupil numbers. Instead, Theresa May wants to take free school lunches away from 1.9 million children to fund her obsession with grammar schools.

Our manifesto commits to capping the cost of

…

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The Voice

Tories in social care meltdown

By The Voice | Sat 20th May 2017 - 10:02 am

It appears that the brutal Tory approach to social care is not going down so well with its own candidates.

From PoliticsHome:

One candidate said the author of the proposal “should be shot”, The Times reports.

Another candidate standing for re-election said it is “very hard to justify” the plan. “This plan was coming up on the doorstep this morning and there has not even yet been much coverage it. It is very hard to justify, because people with a house of £300,000 could have a liability now of £200,000. I thought the campaign was just right until yesterday,” they said.

Bob Blackman, the Tory candidate in Harrow East, told the Evening Standard: “I broadly support the policy but clearly there needs to be a limit on how much any individual or family should be required to pay.”

A third candidate said the plan was “not great. Theresa should have stuck with Dilnot and an insurance scheme.”

Norman Lamb said:

The Tory high command is now in meltdown. It realises it has misjudged the British people, who don’t like this cold, mean-spirited Conservative approach to our most vulnerable citizens.

First Theresa May was revealed as the lunch-snatcher. Now she is pushing a Dementia tax. This will go down as her poll tax – not only a colossal political miscalculation, but also cruel, showing that she just doesn’t care.

No wonder the Tories are panicking. The Liberal Democrats will continue to campaign to give social care the extra funding it needs, properly funded with a penny on income tax to pay for it, and to give Britain a brighter future.

The Tory plan was also condemned by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, who said:

A life-time cap on care costs, as proposed by the Dilnot Commission, is a solution to the insurance problem. It is effectively a form of social insurance, funded from general taxation. It may also make it easier for a private market to emerge that would offer insurance against care costs up to the cap.

By contrast, the Conservative plan makes no attempt to deal with the fundamental challenge of social care funding. That is the big problem – not how many people might win or lose.

In response to that, Norman said:

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The Voice

What’s happening on the campaign trail today? Cole-Hamilton appeals to young voters

By The Voice | Sat 20th May 2017 - 8:50 am

Scottish Liberal Democrat general election campaign chair Alex Cole-Hamilton and  young activists will be outside the U.K. Green Investment Bank headquarters in Edinburgh where Alex will call on young voters to register before Monday’s deadline so that they can have a say in their future

He will declare that only the Liberal Democrats are making the steps necessary to leave behind a green legacy for future generations.

Leaving a sustainable legacy for our children is the most important task of this current generation and both UK and Scottish Government have failed in that task.

The Conservatives don’t care for the environment and the selling off of the Green Investment Bank is just one example of the UK Government rolling back progress made by the Liberal Democrats and neglecting the needs of future generations. Meanwhile the reckless cut to Air Passenger Duty by the SNP will only further pollute our air.

While the Conservatives continue to put forward a cold and mean-spirited vision of Britain, Liberal Democrats are committed to seeing a better future where we leave behind a world that is sustainable and green for our children and I urge those that want to see a greener future to vote Liberal Democrats.

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Andrew Haldane

Is there a defence against the dark arts?

By Andrew Haldane | Fri 19th May 2017 - 11:55 am

This bizarre election campaign is based on building a personality cult around a virtual reality leader who can parrot well–rehearsed lines in controlled surroundings, but doesn’t have the guts to risk exposing her façade in a proper leadership debate. It demonstrates both the arrogance of the Tory PR machine and a press propaganda juggernaut that Putin must envy.

Behind deceptively simple messages there appears to  lie a skilful use of psychology, particularly an understanding of cognitive dissonance; the propensity to ignore, distort or misinterpret incoming information which does not align with existing beliefs or is otherwise unsettling.  The dissonance ramparts are not however impregnable; they can be breached, and an action tendency can be changed. Information that comes from trusted sources, or is otherwise credible, will sometimes get through.  During the referendum “project fear” and the denigration of experts was a clever device to offer wavering leavers licence further to indulge their dissonance and ignore powerful evidence to the contrary that might otherwise have triggered many voters’ decision tipping points.

Another tool being exploited is dissonance’s mirror image i.e. consonance. One way to achieve the desired acceptance of a new message is to tag it to an existing belief or to some information likely to be accepted as fact.  The widely expected difficulty of Brexit negotiations ought to work in our favour. it does not logically follow that the annihilation of alternative political voices or an awkward woman are the answer, but voters are looking for reassurance, for mitigation of perceived risk, and are taking these messages on board. 

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The Voice

Today on the Lib Dem campaign trail

By The Voice | Fri 19th May 2017 - 8:06 am

Today, Tim Farron is in Hazel Grove. With Lisa Smart, our candidate there, he will attend a digital inclusion class.

In Scotland, Willie Rennie will be visiting a candlestick maker in North East Fife. He has already visited a butcher and a baker during this campaign.

He will use the visit to condemn the Conservatives for embracing UKIP policies over Brexit and immigration.

He will say:

The Conservative immigration policy is badly thought through and will hit Scottish universities, businesses and our NHS hard.

Nigel Farage himself has said that the Conservatives are adopting his old policies.

The Scottish Conservatives have done nothing to stop this cold

…

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Caron Lindsay

Farron: I am determined to protect decent people from being taken for granted by a heartless Conservative Government

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 18th May 2017 - 11:11 pm

Well, I certainly chose a fine two days to be sent to the Highlands campaigning. I mean, I’ve barely been able to catch up with the manifesto launch yesterday and the leaders’ debate tonight. I’ve been in the most wonderful places on the planet as far as I am concerned, but have been experiencing the broadband and connectivity problems first hand.

I will be back home tomorrow night. I haven’t yet seen the Leader’s Debate, but by the magic of technology, I can bring you Tim Farron’s opening and closing statements.

He kicked off with a powerful and personal appeal:

I got into politics to fight.

To stand up to those who take you for granted.

I grew up in Preston in the 1980s.

I saw what happens when decent people are taken for granted by a heartless Conservative government.

I am determined to stop that happening again.

The decent Britain I love is under threat.

Theresa May – backed by Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbyn – is going for an extreme Brexit deal that will damage our future for generations.

Don’t give up.

The Britain I love is not lost yet.

No matter which way you voted in the referendum:

If you care about our children, do not cut our schools.

If you care about our elderly, don’t leave them on trollies in corridors.

If you want Britain to lead the world, do not turn your back on it.

A brighter future is possible.

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The Voice

“Our optimistic vision is pro UK, pro EU and progressive”

By The Voice | Thu 18th May 2017 - 8:42 am

Here’s the latest Scottish Liberal Democrats’ Party Election Broadcast. It’s bright, bold and it has banjo

See anyone you recognise?

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NewsHound

“I once led a protest against the Lib Dems. Now I’ll be voting for them”

By NewsHound | Wed 17th May 2017 - 8:55 am

There’s a super article in the Independent by Rahul Mansigani. In 2010, he led a protest against the Lib Dems and Nick Clegg over tuition fees. However, he is now a Lib Dem Newbie – because of Brexit:

as Eurosceptic Corbyn obstinately stayed put while his MPs deserted him, and as Theresa May declared that “if you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere” and the Conservatives demanded that companies publish the numbers of “foreigners” they employed, I saw that the only party that would fight for our values and battle against a hard Brexit was the Liberal Democrats. Like thousands of others, I signed up.

He explains why this issue is so crucially important:

Brexit is the defining issue of this election and of our political generation. The way it is conducted will go to the heart of all the issues we protested about in 2010. Back then, the broadest aim of our protests was to give our young people the best chance of success in an open, prosperous, tolerant Britain. We must now support the Liberal Democrats to continue that wider campaign; a Tory Brexit undermines the existence of the Britain we believe in, not to mention the very existence of the UK.

The Lib Dems are and have always been proudly European, and (unlike the policy issue of tuition fees) this is fundamental to the party. Labour, despite its sudden clarity on scrapping tuition fees, remains hopelessly divided on its own vision of Brexit. The Liberal Democrats are the only party left to stand up for the 48 per cent, for the millions of voters, particularly the young, who voted to remain part of Europe, to be free to study in Paris or Berlin, to marry in Rome or Amsterdam and to work in Stockholm or Sofia.

He urges people to forgive the Lib Dems for mistakes like tuition fees:

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The Voice

Eight Lib Dem policies to improve life for young people

By The Voice | Wed 17th May 2017 - 12:01 am

The Liberal Democrat manifesto will be launched much later today. Ahead of that event, Tim Farron has a message for young people:

Imagine a brighter future. You don’t have to accept Theresa May and Nigel Farage’s extreme version of Brexit that will wreck the future for you, your family, your schools and hospitals.

In the biggest fight for the future of our country in a generation, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour has let you down by voting with Theresa May on Brexit – not against her.

The Liberal Democrats want you to have a choice over your future. You should have your say on the Brexit deal in a referendum. And if you don’t like the deal you should be able to reject it and choose to remain in Europe.

We want to give all our children a brighter future in a fairer Britain where people are decent to each other, with good schools and hospitals, a clean environment and an innovative economy. Not Theresa May’s cold, mean-spirited Britain.

A vote for the Liberal Democrats can change Britain’s future.

Here are eight policies which will make life easier for young people and help them to get on in life.

Rent to Own

The Liberal Democrats will help working people buy their first home for the same cost as renting, with a new model of ‘Rent to Own’ homes, where each monthly payment steadily buys you a share in the home, which you’ll own outright after 30 years, just like with a normal mortgage. This proposal is part of our plans to deliver 300,000 homes a year with government commissioning homes to fill the gap between private sector building and demand.

Restoring housing benefit for young people

The Liberal Democrats would restore Housing Benefit for 18-21 year-olds. Research by the Liberal Democrats has shown an estimated 18,000 young people will be potentially hit by the government’s decision to strip 18-21 year olds of housing benefit, which came into force in the beginning of April. Charities have warned the change could increase levels of homelessness amongst young people.

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Caron Lindsay

Brake: May and Farage’s claim of an easy post-Brexit trade deal left in tatters

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 16th May 2017 - 2:55 pm

So, for long enough, the Brexiteers have been telling us that the EU would be pretty much begging us for a trade deal and we’d easily get one within two years.

Theresa May said last month that the deal could be done in two years , despite all sorts of evidence to the contrary.

Paul Nuttall said that it would all be so easy.

Well, in a sobering reality check, the European Court of Justice, who make the rules on this stuff, said today that all EU governments and national parliaments would have to agree such a deal. Remember how the Canadian EU deal was held up by a regional parliament in Belgium?

Tom Brake said:

Theresa May and Nigel Farage’s claims of an easy trade deal with the EU after Brexit have been left in tatters.

People don’t have to accept a bad Brexit deal that will mean fewer jobs, higher prices and less money for public services.

The Liberal Democrats want you to have your choice over your future.

You should have your say on the Brexit deal in a referendum, and if you don’t like the deal you should be able to reject it and choose to remain in Europe.

None of this is a surprise to the Liberal Democrat team. Their competent, credible and authoratitve statements have proven time and time again to be correct and Nick Clegg’s Brexit Challenge papers provide a comprehensive and accurate analysis of the complexities of all aspects of the risky course we are being dragged on by an incompetent government that hasn’t got a clue what it’s doing.

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Caron Lindsay

May doesn’t care about disabled people losing their benefits – Farron

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 16th May 2017 - 10:28 am

Theresa May was confronted over disability benefit cuts yesterday, during a rare encounter with ordinary people.  Cathy Mohan, who lives in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, berated the Prime Minister over cuts to service and social security for people with learning disabilities.

Watch the encounter here.

Tim Farron said:

Theresa May has shown she just doesn’t care about people like Cathy who are seeing their benefits slashed and prices rise.

Instead of addressing concerns over learning disabilities – she tried to change the subject to mental health.

Theresa May isn’t listening and is taking people for granted.

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Caron Lindsay

WATCH: Tim Farron say he’ll reinstate student nurses’ bursaries, give nurses a pay rise and invest in NHS

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 16th May 2017 - 8:49 am

“I will not have it.” said Tim, saying that the Tories treat nurses like dirt.

He was talking to the Royal College of Nursing conference.

Watch this clip here:

He told them:

The Government’s decision to abandon bursaries for nursing students was clearly wrong.

The evidence has shown a drastic fall in the number of people applying to study nursing following this dangerously short-sighted cut.

We should be supporting more people into these vital professions – but instead this Government are putting up greater barriers.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems to fund £300m a year extra for the police

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 16th May 2017 - 12:01 am

Today’s big Lib Dem policy is an extra £300m a year for the police over the next Parliament.

Under Theresa May at the Home Office, and now as Prime Minister, the police have suffered over £2.2 billion worth of cuts in real terms. This represents a 22% real terms reduction.

As of 31 March 2016 the total strength of the 43 police forces in England & Wales reached just over 124,000 FTE officers. This is the lowest number of police officers recorded under the current strength measure.

Commenting on the announcement Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesperson, and former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the …

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The Voice

What are YOU going to do to encourage young people to register to vote?

By The Voice | Mon 15th May 2017 - 10:24 pm

The Electoral Reform Society has highlighted a huge drop in the number of young people on the electoral register since individual electoral registration came in.

From the Independent:

The ERS, which campaigns on access to democracy, said while the move to IER had improved the accuracy of the register, it has also led to a “significant fall” in the number of young people on the electoral roll.

Of the nations which introduced IER in 2014, Scotland has seen the biggest drop in the number of “attainers” (16 and 17 year olds on the register), at 35 per cent, followed by Wales (27 per cent) and England (25 per cent).

In Northern Ireland, where the IER system has been in place since 2002, the number of those signed up to vote has fallen by half.

Latest analysis shows the number of attainers registered in Westmorland and Lonsdale, the constituency held by the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron, to have dropped by three quarters (75 per cent) over three years.

People only have a week to register to vote. The deadline is 23:59 on 22 May.

Tim Farron and St Albans candidate Daisy Cooper have been encouraging young people to make sure that they have a say:

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Caron Lindsay

Cole-Hamilton challenges Ruth Davidson to disown Tessa Munt’s Tory opponent for foul mouthed independence rant

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 15th May 2017 - 4:45 pm

The chair of the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ election campaign Alex Cole-Hamilton has today called on Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson to disown the Conservative MP for Wells who has been caught in foul-mouthed tirade against a young person.

The Sunday People has the details:

A Tory MP blasted a Scottish girl who said she would vote for independence in a second referendum, saying: “Why don’t you f*** off back to Scotland.”

James Heappey, 36, fighting to stay MP for Wells, Somerset, has apologised, insisting he was joking.
He asked sixth-formers at nearby private Millfield school how they’d vote in a new Scottish referendum

When one Scots girl said she’d back independence, he lashed out.

Over the weekend, Conservatives in Midlothian complained (justifiably) about the behaviour of SNP activists who were basically obnoxious. When anyone on whatever side uses unhelpful language, it just ramps up the tension some more and it’s not fair on those of us who want to see a civilised political environment.

Alex said:

Ruth Davidson needs to immediately disown the actions of her Conservative MP colleague.

Once again a senior Conservative manages to help the SNP by being obnoxious.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems send out strategy briefing to members

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 15th May 2017 - 3:49 pm

One of the things that Lib Dem members really liked about the last General Election was the strategy briefing that came out a couple of months before. In it, the party’s high command explained what they were trying to achieve and how they were going to do it. They also gave suggestions on what members could do to help them achieve our common aims.

We had years to prepare for that election. We had two weeks between Theresa May’s announcement and Parliament being dissolved and we had the local elections going on at the same time. Surely there wouldn’t be time …

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Caron Lindsay

Rennie reveals “appalling” child mental health waits

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 14th May 2017 - 8:55 am

There are five key elements to the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ main themes for this General Election. We plant ourselves firmly on the side of the majority of people in Scotland – pro EU, pro UK and progressive. And we say that our priorities for any extra money coming to Scotland are education and mental health. None of this is particularly surprising as Willie Rennie has been banging on about it for years.

The SNP is in charge of health and education in Scotland and has failed miserably on both. This week very poor literacy figures came out. Given every child under 15 has received their entire education under the SNP.

One barrier to being able to make the most of education is poor mental health. Willie has been talking for some time about a constituent whose child had to wait a year for mental health treatment. If you think about it, that’s a sixth of their secondary education. Once proper support begins, it’s not a quick job to restore good health so the impact on children’s lives is real and damaging.

New statistics acquired by the party through freedom of information requests have shown that five big Scottish health boards, including Lothians, Fife and Highland, recorded cases of children waiting over a year for mental health treatment in 2016/17 or on their current waiting lists.

They include children and young people waiting:

666 days in Lothian before starting treatment in 2016/17
623 days in Highland before starting treatment in 2016/17
611 days in Fife currently
448 days in Ayrshire and Arran currently
385 days in Grampian before starting treatment in 2016/17

After publishing the new figures, Willie commented:

It is appalling to learn that children and young people are still waiting almost two years for the mental health treatment they need. Waiting more than 600 days for help must feel like a lifetime. SNP ministers should hang their heads in shame.

These new statistics show why SNP Government was so wrong to reject the opportunity to invest to transform mental health services in its budget. It shows the damage caused by its letting the mental health strategy expire for 15 months. Its replacement has finally been published but charities and pressure groups have rightly declared it lacks ambition, detail and investment.

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The Voice

Liberal Democrats commit to international aid spending

By The Voice | Sun 14th May 2017 - 12:01 am

In news which will surprise absolutely nobody, the Lib Dems are announcing today that we will maintain the requirement to spend 0.7% of GDP on international aid.

Getting this written into law was one of our best achievements in coalition and we are not going to let it go even though ti has become the focus of the ire of the right wing press.

We believe that it is important that the UK continues to alleviate poverty across the world, helping to build a more secure and stable international community.

Tim Farron explained why this is so important to us:

Liberal Democrats are fierce internationalists, and I am proud of Britain’s record as a world leader in providing help and support to some of the poorest, most vulnerable people in the world.

UK aid prevents suffering.  It allows girls to stay in school, stops babies from dying of preventable illnesses, and ensures that farmers can sell their crops at a fair price. A healthier, safer and more stable world is the best interest of British families as well. That’s why Liberal Democrats are today vowing to fight for Britain’s legacy and protect the 0.7% target.

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