Tag Archives: green belt

We need to be ambitious on planning and housing – while telling uncomfortable truths

Now that the election is over, and we have successfully made inroads into the Conservative Blue Wall, it’s time to reflect and learn from our past. Moving forward, it’s crucial that we balance our national progressive platform with the needs of our Blue Wall constituents. We must navigate this balance with confidence, avoiding the pitfalls of timidity that have hindered us in the past. In a landscape marked by fragmented politics and widespread distrust, we can’t afford to be complacent.

Our victories in this election were not isolated as an endorsement alone but were also influenced by a split on the right. It poses a threat for us. People have an appetite to “shake-up” the system feeling that, for years, Governments have neglected issues like housing, development and infrastructure. We need to be mindful of the rising threat of far-right politics, which often scapegoats marginal groups instead of addressing the real issues. The performances of parties like Reform and the lukewarm vote share for Labour highlight the concerns of many communities. These communities feel “threatened,” suffer from managed decline, and lack regeneration. It’s our duty to ensure that the gains we’ve made in the Blue Wall, while substantiated, also remains meaningful and sometimes brave.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 30 Comments

The Next Lib Dem USP – Build More Houses

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In my last post on Lib Dem Voice I touched on the current soul-searching going on within our Party, focusing on future electoral strategy. However, a successful electoral strategy has no purpose if we have no vision of what we would do with any further power it may bring. Now that the fight to keep the UK in the EU has been lost, the Liberal Democrats are in need of a new mission.

I can think of none better than solving the country’s housing crisis. The current lack of housing in the UK contributes to a number of the country’s wider problems, and so to tackle the housing crisis would go some distance towards making our country greener, healthier, more productive, and more equal.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 38 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • Mick Taylor
    Actually what is really needed is fearless politicians, unafraid to make difficult decisions. What we have seen over many years is vacillation and u-turns. In t...
  • cim
    @David Allen I think the key - for electoral communications, at least - is to skip the description of the process entirely and go straight to the outcome. Yo...
  • David Warren
    The last sentence sums up it for me. We are getting squeezed out in the majority of constituencies and the beneficiaries of the progressive protest vote are the...
  • Alex Macfie
    "those on the left don’t tend to see individuals but see people as members of identity groups," so do many on the Right, using "identity groups" to divide peo...
  • Jana
    My son-in-law is a police officer. He tells me that there is no point arresting shop-lifters as they always get bailed and will be shop-lifting again within the...