Tag Archives: lib dems for the heart of england

Liberal Democrats must engage with ethnic minority communities

By Anita Prabhakar | Tue 26th May 2020 - 3:45 pm

Why are Liberal Democrats, despite having the ultimate political ideology, unable to achieve targeted success in the General Elections?

Of course, there are many factors why we did not achieve desirable results – as we have seen recently in our 2019 Election Review.

But here I am going to pinpoint only one issue which, as a party, we have ignored repeatedly. And I learned this from successful candidates from the two big parties at the last three general elections in 2015, 2017 and 2019, when this was a strategy to reach ethnic minorities. As I am a multilingual person and can speak, Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali and Urdu, it was easy for me to interact with the voters, from ethnic minority backgrounds. And what I noticed was that in a few places, when I was trying to campaign and introduce myself to the BAME voters, so many times I was told that they would have loved to vote for me, but that their votes were already committed to another party’s candidate, because the candidate had been a regular visitor to their community events. And sometimes, though this was not during election campaign, I myself noticed the presence of Conservative or Labour party candidates or well-known party members.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged BAME | 8 Comments

Liberal Democrats for the heart of England

By Michael Mullaney | Sun 3rd May 2020 - 1:00 pm

Many of us living in the Midlands often feel we’re a part of the country forgotten by Government.

Liberal Democrats in the Midlands, having had some tough general election results, may sometimes feel we’re a forgotten part of the party.

To try and address these issues a group of Midlands Lib Dem activists have come together to found Liberal Democrats for the Heart of England. With twin aims of raising issues for the Midlands that need championing within the party and to get more Lib Dems elected at local and Parliamentary level to champion the Midlands’ cause.

As a Leicestershire County Councillor I see first hand how we’re often a part of Britain forgotten by the Tory Government. Despite having all Tory MPs, Leicestershire is about the worst funded county in Britain. Residents see Council Tax regularly soar but services, such as Sure Start Children’s Centres, support for rural bus services, cut right back. Similarly a number of other Counties across the Midlands are among the worst funded in Britain.

Leicestershire also has among the worst funded schools in Britain. This has an effect in limiting opportunities. With social mobility in places like my area of Hinckley and Bosworth being among the lowest in Britain. If a young person grows up here in poverty sadly they’re very likely to stay there. Championing fairly funded education services to give everyone a fair start in life is a key cause for the group.