Tag Archives: jeremy corbyn

Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems want a People’s Vote to stop Brexit. Corbyn can’t say what Labour would do

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 13th January 2019 - 11:30 am

The Sunday morning political programmes can be summarised as follows: Tory psychodrama (Sophy Ridge had three rounds of it), Labour obfuscation and Lib Dem consistency and clarity.

Just imagine that you were the Leader of the Opposition. You’re supposed to be showing leadership on the most important issue of most of our lifetimes. You talk about how you want a General Election, though you haven’t actually bothered to do anything to make one happen.

Then you’re asked what your policy in that General Election would be on the said major issue. Surely to goodness you would have something to tell people. You wouldn’t go on about how it still had to be decided by some party meeting. Surely you would have done that preparatory work already.  I mean, you’ve been going on about this General Election for months.

At least, if you wanted to show that you had even basic competence to run the country, you would be able to say where your party stood. If your policy was coming from principle and value, it would be instinctive.

Unfortunately, you don’t have to imagine any of this. It’s actually happening. The two paragraphs above is pretty much what Corbyn said on Marr this morning. And it’s pretty much what Rebecca Long-Bailey said on Sophy Ridge.

Corbyn did say, though, that if there was no General Election, he’d prefer a Brexit deal to a People’s Vote. He thinks he can go back to the EU and get what are essentially terms of full membership without being members. He said he wanted a customs union that enabled us to have a say in trade deals. And a unicorn that poos glittery rainbows. He didn’t say that last bit, but he might as well have done.

No wonder that Tom Brake tweeted:

Compare and contrast with a brilliant interview from Vince. He was incredibly clear and consistent.

  • Lib Dems want a People’s Vote because we oppose Brexit
  • Lib Dems oppose a Norway style compromise because we’d have all the expenses of EU membership but none of the say on policy
  • Cross-party working is happening and essential not just now but after this is all over to bring country together
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Mark Valladares

31 December 2018 – 6 January 2019 – the week’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Sun 6th January 2019 - 10:45 pm

Right, the holiday season is over, and it’s back to something resembling normalcy tomorrow, what with Parliament resuming and all. So, here’s the press releases that you missed…

  • Govt must provide answers over forced marriage scandal
  • Javid comments on asylum seekers ‘completely unacceptable’
  • Corbyn cosies up to the Conservatives on Brexit
  • All Gove is offering farmers is uncertainty
  • Cable: PM’s publicity campaign is scaremongering
  • Cable: Govt must end brinkmanship over security in Northern Ireland
  • Lib Dems: Govt must follow airports and invest in drone protection

Govt must provide answers over forced marriage scandal

Liberal Democrats today condemned reports that the Government is charging victims of illegal forced marriages to …

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Mark Valladares

21-30 December 2018 – press release catch-up

By Mark Valladares | Sun 30th December 2018 - 10:30 pm

You’d been wondering where I’d gotten to, hadn’t you? Well, following some consideration of how this regular feature works, I’ve decided to change it a bit. From now on, I’ll publish on Monday to Thursday inclusive, and on Sunday evening. My thinking is that politics goes a bit quiet when Parliament isn’t sitting, and one can develop a false expectation as to the flow of press releases from that.

And now, a catch up of press releases you’ve probably missed…

  • Lib Dem call to scrap Vagrancy Act gets Labour backing
  • Cable: Corbyn offers no real alternative
  • Govt must take no deal off the table

…

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Mark Valladares

19 December 2018 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Wed 19th December 2018 - 11:45 pm

As displacement activity, as opposed to actually doing something practical as the country careers towards a cliff-edge Brexit, arguing about whether or not Jeremy Corbyn called Theresa May “stupid woman”, or said “stupid Tories” or “stupid people” seems to hit the spot.

* deep sigh *

It’s so much more courteous down the corridor in the House of Lords…

And the Press Team are still hard at work…

  • Tory immigration plans would bring chaos, not control
  • Corbyn must apologise for PMQs remarks
  • Cable: EU planning reinforces PM must rule out no-deal

Tory immigration plans would bring chaos, not control

Responding to the Government’s immigration white paper, Liberal Democrat …

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Caron Lindsay

Of course Jeremy Corbyn should apologise

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 19th December 2018 - 7:58 pm

I first met Jeremy Corbyn back in, I think, 1985. He came to Aberdeen University to speak in a debate in Women’s Week in favour of the motion “This House should ban Page 3.”

Jeremy Corbyn genuinely gets feminism more than most men, to be honest, so I find it hard to believe that he would deliberately make a sexist comment. I do think that there is an issue with misogyny in left wing politics and I think he could do more to tackle it in his party, so this isn’t an entirely clean bill of health, but there are a lot worse than he is.

When I first saw the video of him speaking in Parliament today, it did look like he had said “stupid woman” but I’ve wasted more time than it merited watching it several times since and I think he probably did say “stupid people.”

Most of us have probably found our colleagues irritating at times, even in the best and most mature of office environments. Most of us at least have the sense to express that irritation in private and away from prying cameras. The House of Commons at PMQs is about the most childish and boorish workplace on the entire planet.

In that febrile atmosphere, even the calmest of personalities can forget themselves and say things they shouldn’t. I believe Corbyn and I’ll forgive him his little lapse today.

But I think he has a hell of a lot to apologise for. Not to Theresa May but to the entire country.

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Mark Valladares

17 December 2018 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Mon 17th December 2018 - 11:00 pm

Another week begins, and the Press Team are back on the frontline.

I am reminded that press releases are not all that our Press Team do, thus what you see here is not a full reflection of their work. There are specialist press releases not necessarily appropriate for a wider audience, and the team work with editors and journalists to gain better coverage, or to bring issues to their attention, and support our Parliamentarians when they interact with broadcast or print media too.

Anyway, on with today’s selection for you to enjoy…

  • Lib Dems: Case for a People’s Vote has spread to very

…

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Caron Lindsay

Wanted: A Leader of the Opposition who doesn’t help the Government wreck the country

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 17th December 2018 - 8:28 pm

It’s really hard to imagine an old revolutionary socialist keeping a right wing government in power, enabling them to take a destructive course virtually unhindered.

Really, at the moment, any decent opposition would be miles ahead in the polls. They would be taking advantage of every bit of parliamentary trickery they could to thwart the Government at every stage. Especially a government that doesn’t have a majority.

But, no. Everything Jeremy Corbyn does just helps out Theresa May.

Take his pretendy- No Confidence motion that he said he’s putting down today.. If you want to take down the Government, you do what it says in the Fixed Term Parliament Act and put down a motion of no confidence in the Government. The Commons Library has prepared a useful guide on how to do it. It’s not difficult.

He’s not done that. He’s done the equivalent of taking a marshmallow to a duel by making his motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister. It might succeed but nobody will care.

Nobody knows whether a proper motion of no confidence would succeed. The DUP might well back Theresa May but the Tory MPs from the 17th century could decide to bring her government down so that they can pursue their goal of not very splendid isolation. We just don’t know until we try. I actually think it is unlikely that Tory turkeys would vote for Christmas. Mind you, Corbyn doesn’t actually want to be in a position where he has to sort this mess out because his chances of commanding a majority in the Commons are even less than May’s. If there was an election, what manifesto would Labour fight on?

So, if he put down a proper motion of no-confidence and it failed, he would then have to go to the next thing on the list – a People’s Vote, which is the last thing on earth that an old socialist brexiteer like him actually wants. 

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Caron Lindsay

The hunt for certainty

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 12th December 2018 - 10:24 pm

Theresa May has been telling MPs that they need to vote for her deal to give certainty.

That has always been hogwash because the Withdrawal Agreement kicks so much about our future relationship with the EU down the road as to be virtually meaningless. In fact, the very existence of the much maligned backstop is proof that it resolves very little and leaves us worse off.

But now, Theresa May’s quest to get her deal through the Commons is even more blighted. When she told Conservative MPs that she intended to step down ahead of the next election, she was probably thinking maybe sometime in 2021. The way some of her MPs, even those who supported her, are talking tonight, she’s got until March.

That adds even more uncertainty into the mix. We have no idea who will lead the negotiations shaping our future relations with the EU. Just imagine that Tory members elect Boris who thinks the chaos of no deal is just what this country needs? At least now we can revert to our membership of the EU but after March 29th we won’t have that safety net.

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Caron Lindsay

Vince tells PM: Brexit Deal is “pathetically weak”

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 23rd November 2018 - 10:25 am

Vince Cable questioned the Prime Minister yesterday when she made her statement on the political declaration of the EU withdrawal agreement. He highlighted one particularly worrying aspect of it:

This is essentially an agreement to have an agreement, and it is full of worryingly vague aspirations. How, for example, can the Prime Minister justify paragraph 24, which relates to medicines, chemicals and aviation safety, where we currently have strong agreed co-operative standards? She has managed to negotiate an agreement to

“explore the possibility of cooperation”.

That is pathetically weak, and it will cause great anxiety to millions of people who depend on high standards of safety.

Ultimately, this deal is a massive kicking of big issues into some very long grass. Nothing will be decided before we leave the EU. This makes it more important than ever that we stop Brexit.

May’s response just emphasised how uncertain this all is:

In relation to these negotiations, we are not able to put legal texts together until we have left the European Union and are no longer a member of the European Union—that, of course, is what we will be able to do when we leave on 29 March 2019.

Brexit is a leap into the fog. We owe future generations better than this.

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Corbyn is right about inequality

By A Liberal in Leeds | Fri 12th October 2018 - 10:25 am

Corbyn is clearly right to highlight the ‘grotesque inequality’ in our society. Wage growth has stagnated. Continued cuts are hitting the poorest hardest. And this generation is on set to be the first on living memory to be poorer than their parents.

Even if you try and ignore the unfairness, the evidence shows it harms productivity and creates the sort of ‘asset bubbles’ that caused the 2008 financial crisis.

But I have one question. Where are Labour’s answers?

At first glance the most radical is renationalisation. But this is nothing more than a recycled plan from the 1970s. It just tinkers at the edges of inequality, and carries significant risks for our future economic and energy security.

Next comes Labour’s big ticket spending item. Abolishing tuition fees. Our higher education system is far from perfect, but how many better ways could we spend £7.5 billion a year? What amounts to a tax cut for the middle classes does absolutely nothing to tackle inequality.

Most significantly, we have some Labour economic doublespeak –  ‘borrowing to invest’ in public services. While the NHS, for example, clearly does needs to be better funded, ‘invest’ falsely suggests that we get an economic return on borrowing for public services. That it will all be fine.

And this, maybe even more than Brexit, is the big danger of a Labour government. The government is already, as the Prime Minister admitted last week, spending more on paying interest alone than the entire schools’ budget. Labour’s borrowing plan would mean future generations would have to pay higher taxes and spend even less on public services.

We demand better. The Liberal Democrats have a genuine, radical plan to combat inequality.

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Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron writes: Corbyn is handing the incompetent Tories the next election

By Tim Farron MP | Sat 22nd September 2018 - 9:14 am

The guilty pleasure of my political life is the years I spent involved in student politics. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, I attended no fewer than 10 conferences of the National Union of Students – as a result I accidentally became a connoisseur of the various factions of theLabour party. Even as a Liberal, if one spends much time in student politics you are bound to make friends with folks in Labour. To me, Labour is like a fascinating enemy country. We are at conflict with them, but I am somehow fond of their natives and traditions.

Those who today are running Her Majesty’s Opposition, were – back then- selling newspapers outside the Student Union building. Who’d have thought it?

I don’t know Jeremy Corbyn very well but quite like him on a personal level having had the occasional chat over the years. WhenLabour were in power, he was always in the Lib Dem lobby…

Jeremy and his former newspaper selling mates have a problem. They don’t know how to talk to people who aren’t already converted. Jeremy Corbyn has a 40 year history of talking only to friendly audiences on left-leaning causes. He speaks in favour of Palestine to pro-Palestine meetings, speaking up for Irish Republicanism to pro-Republican audiences, promotes unilateral nuclear disarmament to crowds who already agree with him.

The Labour leader is a master of preaching to the converted. I’m not sure how principled this is, but it is neither brave nor wise. If all you do is to go with the grain of the earnest and like-minded people around you, you will ruffle no feathers, win no converts and never get to test the effectiveness of your arguments.

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Caron Lindsay

The Tory-Labour Brexit bandwagon rolls on…time for us to shine

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 26th February 2018 - 10:36 pm

How do we get across to all those young people who voted Labour thinking that they were against Breixit on to our side?

Jeremy Corbyn’s speech today brings Labour about a millimetre further away from the Tories than they were yesterday. Corbyn has been dragged kicking and screaming to support membership of “a” customs union but not the single market. That’s not a million miles from Theresa May’s bespoke arrangement where we will apparently be able to do what the hell we want without sticking to any of the EU’s rules.

Our digital people have put out a nifty little video linking May and Corbyn’s position and saying that the Liberal Democrats are the only party opposing Brexit.

The problem is that our capacity to reach the very people we need on side has been limited. The young people who voted Labour so enthusiastically have not yet forgiven us for the Coalition years. We have an awful lot to say to these young people, not just on Brexit but on housing, education, opportunities. We’ve actually got something hopeful to offer them. We’ll give more of them a say by letting them vote at 16, we’ll build more houses so that they somewhere decent to live, we’ll give them wider, more accessible and better choices when they leave school.

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The Voice

Vince: Dear Jeremy, Stop supporting Tory Brexit and give the people a say

By The Voice | Sun 4th February 2018 - 1:25 pm

Vince Cable has written to Jeremy Corbyn to ask him to put the Labour party in line with its own supporters and support a referendum on the final Brexit deal.

Here is the text n full:

Jeremy Corbyn
Leader of HM Opposition
House of Commons
London, SW1A 0AA

2nd February 2018

Dear Jeremy,

I am writing to you about Brexit, because I was dismayed by your interview with Andrew Marr last Sunday, when you reiterated your personal objection to letting the British people have their say on the Conservatives’ Brexit deal.

There is now significant momentum behind demands for the people to have the final say. Repeated polls show a substantial majority of people are in favour of a public vote. The most recent ICM survey showed a 16-point lead in favour.

Moreover, the vast majority of your own supporters want this referendum – 78% according to an authoritative study by Queen Mary University, London. We know most of your Parliamentary party feel similarly. Surely it is time for Labour to join the campaign rather than continue to support Theresa May’s pursuit of a damaging hard Brexit.

As the leak of the Department for Exiting the European Union’s impact assessment shows, there is no form of Brexit that will see British workers and their families better off than if we remain within the EU.

You will have noted that Yanis Varoufakis – among many others from your own democratic socialist tradition – endorsing a similar conclusion this week, with strong support for the Single Market.

You have energised young people to get engaged in politics, which is a significant achievement. But with three quarters of young people under the age of 25 opposed to leaving the EU, they will be left disillusioned if you do not help the fight to secure them the option of an exit from Brexit.

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The Voice

Labour “betraying members and parliamentary base” by opposing single market membership

By The Voice | Sun 28th January 2018 - 4:56 pm

Jeremy Corbyn told the Andrew Marr Show this morning that Labour did not favour the UK staying in the single market. Will Labour members, who overwhelmingly want to do so now realise that Corbyn is not going to deliver what they want? A Queen Mary University study showed that 85% of Labour members want to stay in the single market. There is even higher support, 87% for staying in the customs union. 78% want the public to have a final say on the Brexit deal. Corbyn ruled that out too.

Vince Cable had this to say:

As has long been suspected,

…

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The Voice

Jeremy Corbyn empty-chaired at single market summit

By The Voice | Tue 9th January 2018 - 8:49 pm

This morning a summit took place in Parliament to discuss ways of working together to make sure that the UK stays in the single market on which so many jobs depend.

Our Vince was there

But there was an empty chair:

Which was a real shame because most of the rest of the opposition parties showed up too.

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Caron Lindsay

Liberal Democrats would end the benefits freeze – but Labour aren’t sure

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 27th August 2017 - 10:55 am

As prices go up in a Brexit-induced inflationary spiral, spare a thought for the poorest in our society. People who are having to rely on state benefits don’t get any cushioning thanks to George Osborne’s benefit freeze. As prices go up, benefits, already at a meagre level, stay the same making it even harder for people to survive.

So, you’d think that Jeremy Corbyn’s lefty Labour Party would be all about ending the freeze. Well, that’s what they briefed reporters on Friday morning ahead of a Corbyn visit to Cambridge. Remember that until 2015, Cambridge was represented by a Liberal Democrat who voted against many of the most contentious elements of the Coalitions social security reforms.

Anyway, Jezza rolls up and, weirdly, gives a much more timid message than his advisers had briefed. From Politics Home:

Party officials briefed journalists that Mr Corbyn would make the promise during a visit to Coatbridge in Lanarkshire yesterday.

A trail of his speech quoted the Labour leader saying: “We will lift the freeze on social security, using part of the billions we set aside for reform in our costed manifesto, by recycling social security savings made by introducing a real Living Wage of £10 an hour, and by building the affordable homes we need.”

But when he came to make the address, Mr Corbyn only said: “We are confident that we will be able to end the benefits freeze.”

A Labour source told The Times: “In his campaign speeches… not everything is said, but the intention was to say that. It’s in line with our policy.”

A party spokesman said: “We are confident that we will be able to end the benefits freeze.”

It’s the sort of caution that strikes resignation and frustration into the heart of anyone that actually wants to sort stuff out.

Just as a matter of interest, what is the Liberal Democrats’ policy on this? Pretty unequivocal, from the 2017 manifesto

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Bill Fowler

Vince Cable, the next PM?

By Bill Fowler | Tue 25th July 2017 - 10:15 am

 

As a fan of Mrs Thatcher it might seem odd that I have just joined the Liberal Democrats. However times change, hard right policies are more likely to drive the large number of people depending on in-work benefits or working in the government into the hands of Mr Corbyn.  Labour, who shout loudly about democratic mandates, are likely to have another go at bankrupting the country as well as bring democracy into disrepute by promising endless giveaways.

The worst possible case for the UK is to have a Labour government and be outside the EU. Labour want out of EU because they can then rape and pillage the slightly rich – anyone who cannot bite back. Given the pasting that the EU gets from our press it is actually surprising that, as far as citizens’ rights go, it actually does work – and seems to be improving in many areas. It would be ironical if Brexit forces them to reform further in the interests of its citizens rather than its bureaucrats.

I would probably have not joined up had not Vince Cable become leader; he at least talks some reasonable sense – most of the time. Now he has the amusing task of saving the country from itself. The current fickleness of the British voting public means just about anything is possible but it will mean swallowing some liberal pride to get there. Looking from the outside, there is one little trick that might placate half the Brexiteers and that is a very strict residence test before there is any access to benefits, social housing, in-work benefits and possibly the personal tax allowance. By strict I mean at least five years…

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Mark Argent

In the world of the Corbyn bounce

By Mark Argent | Mon 12th June 2017 - 6:28 pm

The unexpected is happening. In the wake of the late surge in support for Labour that wiped out Theresa May’s majority (and hit the Liberal Democrat vote), a new poll on 11 June shows Labour six points ahead of the Tories. Labour are reporting 15,000 new members in the first three days after the election.

On the doorsteps on polling day, and with friends since, the sense is that Labour under Corbyn have caught people’s imaginations. What does this mean for us?

My sense is that this is a problem because people’s imaginations have been caught by something unrealistic. If we now had a majority Labour government, disappointment would be around the corner, but for now, hopes are roused. There’s a parallel with Brexit being seen as a bright new future.

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The Voice

So this is how Jeremy Corbyn will be holding May to account on Brexit….

By The Voice | Wed 29th March 2017 - 8:25 pm

At Prime Minister’s Questions today, any half decent opposition leader would have lined up his most ferocious MPs to go to town on the PM over Brexit. We’ll gloss over the fact that any decent Leader of the Opposition wouldn’t have let the Article 50 Bill pass unamended in the first place.

But we don’t have a decent Leader of the Opposition. We have Jeremy Corbyn. You just get the feeling that if PMQs had been extended by a couple of hours, he wouldn’t have got round to asking a question on Brexit. No doubt he’d have asked about the weather and who the PM thought had done in Ken Barlow on Corrie.  He should have taken May apart on Brexit. He should have had half a dozen MPs lined up with killer questions.  But Labour MPs asked about anything but – until Tulip Siddiq came along. The MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, a passionate and effective opponent of Brexit, asked about the £350 million a week for the NHS.

Later, in his reply to the Prime Minister’s statement, rather than deliver a feisty riposte, he sounded like he was discussing the relative merits of different kinds of broad bean. There was no passion, no fire. “If she meets our tests, we’ll back her,” he said. Labour’s tests are meaningless anyway as they have failed them themselves. They had every opportunity to ensure that the Government’s strategy was changed to include membership of the single market, to stand up for the rights of EU nationals, and to give Parliament a meaningful vote on the deal. 

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Zachary Barker

Getting serious about defence

By Zachary Barker | Mon 27th March 2017 - 12:32 pm

 

Since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader much of the Liberal Democrat’s rhetoric has been aimed at portraying him as an extremist.  Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron claimed that Labour had “left the field” in a party conference speech.  The implication of this claim is that Labour have left the centre ground to embark on a far leftist fellow-traveller path, seemingly ignoring the electoral success it gained from the dominating the centre ground in the New Labour years.  In this way the Liberal Democrat comeback seemingly relies on a message that it is the new party of the centre ground.  However doing this mean more than just gesture politics, it means not being afraid to tackle issues which are not commonly associated with liberalism, most notably defence.

Liberal Democrat manifestos in recent years have treated defence matters like an afterthought, an embarrassment almost, especially when it comes to questions of hard power.  When it comes to asking questions about our hard power capability our manifesto prefers to move toward the murky soft power where it seems we are more ideologically comfortable.  The 2016 manifesto talked about emphasising “a Single Security Budget, including not just conventional defence spending but the work of our security agencies, cyber defences and soft power interventions”.  This policy in itself provides opportunities and dangers.  While it is important to emphasise that multiple security threats require multiple solutions to tackle them, there can be no substitute for hard power.  Put simply; while it is arguable that the main security threat we face is from terrorism we can’t leave ourselves unprepared for future inter-state conflict.

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Caron Lindsay

The irony behind tonight’s Corbyn media firestorm

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 2nd February 2017 - 9:35 pm

By Jeremy Corbyn’s standards, it was actually quite a good speech. Pink News has the video here. He was engaged, clearly speaking from the heart. He talked about having saved a Gay Centre from attack by National Front types decades before gay rights became fashionable. And then, in true Corbyn fashion, he has to go and ruin it all by concluding:

Our defence of you is a defence of all of humanity and the right of people to practise the life they want to practise, rather than be criminalised, brutalised and murdered, simply because they chose to be gay, they chose to be lesbian, they were LGBT in any form

Obviously, being gay isn’t some kind of lifestyle choice. You don’t choose it any more than you choose your eye pr skin colour or whether you are right or left handed. It is how you are born. Everything about Jeremy Corbyn’s voting record on LGBT issues over the years suggests he knows that and that he genuinely mis-spoke tonight. Let’s face it, it’s not the first time he’s snatched disaster from the jaws of opportunity.

He should be aware that any inference that your sexual orientation or gender identity is a choice plays into the hands of those who wish to roll back the decades of progress. It is also deeply upsetting to LGBT people.

It’s even more upsetting when it’s being gleefully amplified all over the place by the right wing press and Tory LGBT groups.

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Bernard Aris

Trying (too hard) to curb EU free movement: A symptom of the EU-wide social democracy meltdown

By Bernard Aris | Wed 11th January 2017 - 1:55 pm

Just as I was reading Nick Tyrone’s blog about Corbyn betraying the EU freedom of movement but wanting to have the EU cake nonetheless, another recently-elected Labour leader came on Dutch public radio. Note the date: Tuesday, January 10th, 2017.

I’m talking about former Amsterdam alderman and present Dutch minister of Social Affairs, the ambitious lawyer Lodewijk Asscher of the “Partij van de Arbeid”/PvdA, literally: “Labour Party”.

In the 1980s, when Labour under Michael Foot was going through its “Militant Tendency” phase, the then PvdA leaders, ex-prime minister (1973-’77) Den Uyl and coming prime minister (1994-2002) Wim Kok deplored that leftist populism and leftist political correctness gone wild. So both criticised it: British Labour, come to your senses.

Not today.

In the Dutch campaign that just got started for the General Election on 15th March, Mr. Asscher, who just two weeks ago won a party leadership contest, just said that he counted on “European Leftist support” (PvdA jargon: from fellow Labour and social democratic parties) to pursue his top-profile policy: curbing free movement of labour through the EU. When the radio presenter quoted a phrase Gordon Brown grew to regret: “Jobs for our labourers first”, Mr. Asscher readily agreed. And who does he expect to get support from?

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David Thorpe

Corbyn’s pay cap plan boosts the rich, not the poor

By David Thorpe | Wed 11th January 2017 - 10:55 am

As usually happens when hard line Socialist utopias are created, Jeremy Corbyn’s maximum pay plan would help the rich not the poor.

That is because when employees reach the maximum, other ways would be found to reward them which would increase inequality and reduce the tax take from the rich.

In Soviet Russia access to the splendour of the Bolshoi Ballet was a perk for the wealthy. The poor weren’t helped, and no tax was collected on the perk.

So it would be if Corbyn got his way.  Employers would pay bonuses, perhaps in shares or profit share, when they can’t pay extra cash. The thing is, shares or profit shares, when sold, are liable to Capital Gains Tax, not Income Tax as wages are, and the capital gains tax rate is lower than the income tax rate above £140,000. 

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Jeremy Hazlehurst

The problem with a wage cap

By Jeremy Hazlehurst | Tue 10th January 2017 - 7:30 pm

Jeremy Cobyn’s proposal to bring in a maximum wage (or, if you like, a 100% tax rate) would not work, for two reasons. The first, is that the swing voters he needs to attract would never vote for a party with this potty policy. If you are flirting with voting for the Conservatives, you are not going to like the idea of a wage cap.

If any further discussion is needed, then the second reason is that it would not have the intended effect. Presumably the reason to bring down wages would be to reduce inequality. But most rich people do not get their income from salaries, but from dividends, capital gains, rental income etc.

I don’t know if the Duke of Westminster takes a salary, but capping it would not change one iota the fact that he owns a huge swathe of London’s most valuable real estate. If your only source of income is your salary, then capping it only stops you being able to catch up with the already-rich. Or encourages you to take income in other forms. 

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Caron Lindsay

Farron: Corbyn’s relaunch shows that Lib Dems are the real voice of opposition

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 10th January 2017 - 6:09 pm

I have to say I do feel for my friends in the Labour Party – those people whose views on many of the issues of the day are not wildly dissimilar to mine. They stuck with Labour through Iraq and the erosion of civil liberties despite feeling uncomfortable with both of these things. And now they are faced with a leadership delivering them at the feet of Theresa May and her Brexiteers.

When you have devoted a huge amount of your life to working for a political party, you have a huge amount of your social and emotional ties wrapped up in it too. It’s not easy to walk away from.

I understand those ties because I feel them for this party, an organisation to which I have devoted more than two thirds of my life.

I wouldn’t ask or expect my friends to leave Labour – although I think most of them could be quite happy in the Liberal Democrats – because that has to be a personal decision for them. I’d welcome them if they did decide to join us and I will certainly find ways to work with them on the issues where we agree, most notably in opposing the Tory/Labour hegemony on Brexit.

This is the biggest thing that this country has done in my lifetime. The shock waves will be felt for generations. The vote was knife-edge close, so the government should have to prove itself at every step of the way by being scrutinised within an inch of its life – ultimately by the people of this country being asked to ratify the Brexit deal or not. Yet the Labour Party under Corbyn has capitulated and given the Tories free rein.

So I won’t be asking my friends in Labour directly to join us. They can make their own minds up about where their future lies. But I do extend an invitation to all those people out there who vote Labour, or who maybe have never been involved in party politics before but who are deeply uneasy about what they see unfolding before them.

Tim Farron this afternoon recorded a short video in which he outlined the two reasons why Corbyn’s relaunch is bad news. Firstly, the obvious Brexit one, but secondly and as importantly, having a Trump on the left is not a good thing. Populism is bad news wherever it comes from.

He also sent an email to Lib Dem members entitled “We’ve got to talk about Jeremy” saying:

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Ryan Lailvaux

Left out in the cold – why the Left has failed to win

By Ryan Lailvaux | Mon 19th December 2016 - 12:42 pm

 

Politics in the West has entered a new era.

Those on the left of the political spectrum sit around scratching their heads on why power they had once taken for granted, has been taken from them. Why has the left failed to engage with the same people who they champion?

From the EU Referendum and the American presidential election, there was a common theme that Leave campaigner Michael Gove put so unashamedly, “people in this country have had enough of experts.” Slogans and punchy one liners were repeated tirelessly by Donald Trump and Nigel Farage until the masses were quoting them as facts and chanting them at rallies.

Then there was the argument from the neutrals.

“Both sides have acted dishonestly.”

“Both candidates are terrible.”

“I am sick of the liberal elite.”

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News Meerkat

Labour are trapped in a nightmare of two parties – Tim Farron on Corbyn’s speech

By News Meerkat | Wed 28th September 2016 - 4:58 pm

Here is Tim Farron’s response to Jeremy Corbyn’s speech at the Liverpool Labour conference today:

Corbyn’s speech shows Labour’s problem, the last time I saw ovations like that was Iain Duncan Smith’s Blackpool conference speech. Here was a quiet man turning down the volume, especially on Europe. He barely mentioned Brexit and said nothing on the importance of the Single Market. It is clear that the Liberal Democrats are the only pro-European party now.

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Order out of chaos

By A Liberal in Leeds | Mon 26th September 2016 - 10:55 am

 

Her Majesty’s Opposition is in turmoil. Our country is in crisis. Corbyn won’t budge.

I am saddened by Labour’s demise. For all its flaws, for almost twenty years it has been a strong, progressive force in British politics. Corbyn has been re-elected with a sizeable 62% of the vote. Now Corbyn has a sizeable number of admiring activists – but they are talking to themselves.  The public has already made up its mind about Corbyn – he is seen as incompetent, extreme and unelectable. It is all but impossible for Labour to gain seats in 2020 with him at the helm. The Labour party is already teetering on the edge of electoral oblivion.

And a lot of Lib Dems know what it’s like to lose elections. It hurts. We need to have sympathy with the thousands of Labour activists who want a united, centre-left Labour party. It would be opportunistic and insensitive to react to Labour’s turmoil with barely-disguised glee. How did you feel when parts of the left did just that after the 2015 General Election?

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Gerard Thompson

Corbyn: a warning from (recent) history

By Gerard Thompson | Mon 26th September 2016 - 8:33 am

 

Imagine our surprise on Saturday when news of Jeremy Corbyn’s re-election of the Labour party came through hot off the wires. As it happened, my partner, who is about as a-political as you can get (and that’s saying something, considering we have been together through multiple elections, not least of all the General Election last year, somewhat inconveniently we were moving flat the day after – a story in itself) had made a special study of this election and mentioned the news.

In this age of anti-politics, the figure Corbyn cuts has great appeal for people like my partner, who are not necessarily overtly political, but are reasonably well-informed with no fixed views or attitude. In a sweeping generalisation, it is much akin to what we see in America right now with Trump, albeit in extremis politically to what the Hon. Member for Islington North has to offer. This is the stark zeitgeist we are operating in.

I was reminded yesterday, thanks to social media, of a status I had written some six years ago to the day, an observation I made about Ed Miliband’s election as Labour Party leader. “We (as Liberal Democrats) have the result we want”, I wrote. How wrong I was. At the time, I felt an inherently weak leader in the mind of the general public would only serve us well. The folly of this idea had its apex in the early hours of May 8th last year, when the very idea of Miliband and Scottish nationalists cobbling together a coalition drove the so-called ‘soft Conservatives’ – crucial to securing victories in all our Tory-facing seats – to the ballot box not caring really how brilliant their Lib Dem incumbent was, because the national situation required they duly vote blue. Which they did. A lot.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 22 Comments
Paul Walter

We shouldn’t criticize Jeremy Corbyn for finally doing a bit of reasonably clever “media”

By Paul Walter | Wed 24th August 2016 - 5:35 pm

Jeremy Corbyn is getting a bit hammered, particularly by Richard Branson, for a video of him sitting on the floor of a Virgin Train.

You can read the ins and outs of “Traingate” elsewhere.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 42 Comments
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