Tag Archives: Local government

NewsHound

LIb Dem led Powys County Council continues free school meal holiday scheme

By NewsHound | Wed 19th July 2023 - 9:07 am

In the middle of a cost of loving crisis, any extra demands on household income can be catastrophic for some families.

The Summer holidays should be a carefree time of play and fun for children. For parents on the lowest incomes, though, it can be incredibly difficult to find the money to provide an extra daily meal if their children are on free school meals.

In Wales, the Labour (just have a think about that for a minute) Government ended the scheme to give families entitled to free school meals vouchers during the Summer holidays. This policy was, of course, introduced during the pandemic by our own brilliant education secretary Kirsty Williams.

However, three Welsh Councils, including Lib Dem led Powys, have decided to take over the scheme so that children do not go hungry during the Summer.

Our Councillor Jake Berriman said:

The late notice that councils across Wales were given about this scheme stopping would have had a detrimental impact on low-income families. Not only would they lose out on the voucher scheme but they would also have had a very limited time to adjust their family finances accordingly.

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Michal Siewniak

What does it mean to be a good Chair?

By Michal Siewniak | Fri 7th July 2023 - 1:41 pm

A week or so ago, I had an opportunity to Chair my first Grants Committee meeting. Not a big deal some people would say and I agree; it is not. Having said that, I felt the importance of “doing my part”, which meant being well prepared and ensuring that the meeting is run smoothly (Council Officers were very helpful!)

The role of the Chairperson is actual vital, in any environment or any capacity. In my opinion, this role has a lot of critical components and it requires (some examples):

  • Good listening skills (a lot of improvement needed here in my case!)
  • Ability to set out clear instructions
  • Drive and commitment to empower participants by bringing them into a conversation during various parts of the meeting
  • “Emotional capacity”/ “behavioural adaptation” to “read the room” in order to help and engage all members of the group/ workshop/ Committee. Often, some meetings that we might attend, can be dominated by one or a small group of individuals
  • A sense of humour, a bit of energy and passion and knowledge for the subject
  • Ability to summarise key points and agreeing next steps
  • Time management

Let’s hope that my reflection will help me (and maybe others?) to get better at creating opportunities for dialogue in all circumstances and that constructive criticism will not put us off from bringing people together. In my view, this approach will help us more effectively to serve our towns, cities and neighbourhood in our various roles and capacities. In order to achieve this, we must always put people first. I know; easier said than done!

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Michael Taylor

How to find candidates

By Michael Taylor | Wed 21st June 2023 - 7:30 am

I note that Mark Pack is trying to persuade the party to run many more candidates in local elections. He’s quite right. No-one, as far as I know, has suggested how you do this. In this article I offer my take on how to get candidates from scratch.

So, what do you do to get candidates? Ideally, you would have started this process at least 6 months before the election, but the methodology is the same. September is also a good time to start because we often have a useful boost in interest because of the party conference.

Forget the phone, email, text or any other sort of social media. In 40 years of candidate hunting I have recruited only one person using all these approaches. You have to go and call on people, unannounced and ask them. If you try any other approach, they will say no. Lots of people have not accepted the no contact in advance rule and wonder why they fail. “Oh, but it’s rude not to phone in advance, they might not be in, we may be wasting our time” or similar are all guaranteed to result in the person saying no. Believe me, as one of the most successful candidate recruiters in the country, I really do know what I’m talking about.

But how do you know who to ask? Mostly, you don’t. Connect and EARS both have functions that enable you to create lists of people who have been canvassed LIB DEM and voted at least twice recently. It may not be a big list, but it works for me. Secondly, look for activists in local causes or clubs and societies. Thirdly ask everyone you call on if they can think of some else to ask. Of the 13 people I recruited in 2019, only 3 were active party members at the time of asking. 3 were activists in local charities or organisations and the rest came from the lists of people who we thought had supported us.

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Caron Lindsay

Drama as Lib Dem budget passes in Edinburgh

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 23rd February 2023 - 8:06 pm

Budget setting in Scotland’s Councils is challenging to say the least at the moment. The cumulative effect of a decade and a half of SNP Government underfunding makes for some very tough decision making.

There was unexpected drama in Edinburgh’s historic City Chambers this afternoon as the Labour administration’s Council budget was defeated and that of the Lib Dem group passed instead.

Labour’s budget was defeated due to tactical voting by the 10 Green Councillors, who split their votes amongst the opposition parties. In addition, a suspended Labour Councillor resigned from the group during the meeting, bringing their number of Councillors down to 12.

From the Evening News:

The successful Lib Dem proposals also include a council tax rise of five per cent, less than the 5.75 per cent proposed by Labour; rejecting £5m of education cuts proposed by council officials; an extra £11m for road and pavement maintenance; £3m for improvements to parks and greenspaces; an extra £2m for flood prevention; and £3m towards the refurbishment of the King’s Theatre. But there is no money to fund the continuation of free tram fares for under-22s or bring back a cycle hire scheme.

One element that meant a lot to one particular councillor was the saving of speech and language therapies, although his very personal speech was interrupted by a former Council leader.

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Michal Siewniak

“Why would you stand again?”

By Michal Siewniak | Mon 13th February 2023 - 12:13 pm

Bonkers? You have nothing better to do? What’s the point? Don’t you feel that your efforts are worthless? I often wonder whether standing again, literally after being elected 12 months ago, sounds “sane”. It feels like only yesterday I wrote to readers of the Liberal Democrat Voice to introduce myself as a candidate in the May 2022 Local Elections. I wanted to share my story, challenge some of the stereotypes and prove that only the sky’s the limit if we passionately believe in something. This is why I was delighted to get elected and overall, I am enjoying every minute of being able to serve you as your local councillor.

The national and international political landscape is not helping; the war in Ukraine, cost of living crisis, sky-rocketing inflation. Who would have thought that 12 months later, members of the Conservative Party would have selected their third Prime Minister? Has much changed? Not in my opinion. Is this why some many people are fed up with the Government, political status-quo and feel completely disengaged?

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Mary Reid

An “existential crisis” for English Councils

By Mary Reid | Wed 16th November 2022 - 3:45 pm

It has been many years since Councils have felt they had enough funding to provide the services that their residents need. For most of this century they have been cutting many non-essential and non-statutory services, such as youth clubs, and they have been outsourcing some essential services to cheaper and, in some cases, inexperienced and inadequate providers. And the cuts have happened year on year, so what seems unthinkable one year becomes a reality the next.

The core Council services are around housing and social care, for adults and children, plus a number of environmental services such as recycling and waste collection. Social care supports the most vulnerable, from essential care for the elderly and those with disabilities, to support for families in crisis and providing for looked after children. Most Councils also support an active volunteer sector with its increasing provision of food banks, as sure indicator that all is not well with society.

Throughout all this the Westminster government has been adding extra responsibilities to local government, but not the funding needed to meet them, all the while passing the blame onto Councils.

Councils get the bulk of their income from Council tax, business rates and central Government grants. The latter consists of the main revenue support grant, plus ring-fenced grants which simply pass through the Councils accounts and directly out to recipients, such as housing benefits and school funding. The formula for allocating the revenue support grant is shrouded in mystery, but seems to be based on historical assessments of need rather than current need.  It has also reduced on average by 50% in recent years, and some Councils get precisely zero in revenue support.

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Simon McGrath

We should be talking about Lib Dem Councils Building new homes 

By Simon McGrath | Wed 2nd November 2022 - 2:01 pm

One of the achievements of Lib Dem controlled  Councils  has been a focus on building social and affordable housing – but it’s not one the Party has made much of. Given that access to housing is one of the key issues in our society that seems a  pity.

In York for example the Lib Dem run council is focused  on increasing the number of  affordable homes  – 447 have been delivered in the last 3 years – and the numbers are increasing year or year. The Council is planning to have delivered  no less than 600 affordable  homes in it’s 4 years term and to have done so while protecting the local Green Belt.

Even better many of these are being delivered to ‘Passivhaus ‘ standards meaning that they are  much  better for the environment.

In Kingston we are doing something most Labour councils say is impossible – building new council  housing – and new housing build to the highest environment standards. .As the Portfolio Holder for Housing , Clr Emily  Davey says -“providing homes which meet our residents needs is a priority for us.”

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Simon McGrath

Lib Dem Eastleigh wins Council of the Year award

By Simon McGrath | Tue 27th September 2022 - 9:22 am

Eastleigh Council has won the prestigious “ Council of the Year” award from the  Association for Public Service Excellence,  recognising its excellent performance in delivering front line council services. The awards receive hundreds of submissions every year and only outstanding councils, that have met the stringent criteria of the expert judges, are shortlisted for Council of the Year.

There are 22 Categories of award and as well as Council of the year. Eastleigh’s  Direct Services team won the  award for Transport and Fleet Maintenance and  the Council was  shortlisted in 4 other categories.

Accepting the award  on behalf of the Council, Cabinet Member for Health and Social Policy, Councillor Tonia Craig said:

Being recognised as Council of the Year is a superb accolade and reflects the commitment of our staff to deliver truly excellent frontline services. I would like to pay tribute to all our teams who work so hard to support communities and improving lives in our Borough – and to thank APSE for this recognition.

Eastleigh is one of the Party’s flagship Councils with has 34 Lib Dem Councillors  out of 39 and we have been in control since 1995.

You can see the Eastleigh Team receiving the award here:

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Mark Valladares

17 August 2022 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Wed 17th August 2022 - 10:30 pm
  • Inflation figures: People will never forgive this Government for abandoning them
  • Thames Water hosepipe ban: slap in the face for millions of people
  • “Nasty party”: Kwarteng must clarify Truss’s shameful ‘graft’ comments
  • 75,000 A-Level grades set to be deflated under Government’s exam plans
  • Councillor Sykes welcomes change in law barring sex offenders from standing for or holding elected office

Inflation figures: People will never forgive this Government for abandoning them

Responding to inflation reaching 10.1% this morning, Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesperson Sarah Olney MP said:

Britain is heading for the worst economic crisis in a generation, yet the Prime Minister has clocked off early whilst Sunak and Truss are too busy squabbling amongst themselves.

Families and pensioners will never forgive this Conservative Government for abandoning them in the middle of a cost of living catastrophe.

The answer is staring Conservative MPs in the face but they refuse to act. Energy bills must be frozen immediately or else millions of people will be plunged into financial devastation this winter.

Thames Water hosepipe ban: slap in the face for millions of people

Responding to the news that Thames Water will enforce a hosepipe ban, Liberal Democrat Environment Spokesperson Tim Farron MP said:

This is a slap in the face for millions of people when Thames Water is losing a quarter of all their water to leaks.

Their gross negligence to fix leaks is set to inflict hosepipe ban misery across the South. We wouldn’t be in this mess if Thames Water bothered to invest properly. Instead, water companies are choosing to pay themselves billions of pounds in profits and reward their CEOs with insulting bonuses. Thames Water is putting profit above the public and environment.

Ministers are to blame for letting profiteering water companies get away with it. Under this Government, our rivers have become polluted with sewage and water pipes rusting with leaks.

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David Brunnen

“Democracy Made in England – Where next for English Local Government?”

By David Brunnen | Mon 14th March 2022 - 11:02 am

In less frenetic times, this report would have grabbed headlines – but attention has already been cornered by outrageous events in Ukraine. Those distractions are, no doubt, mightily convenient for the current cabal who pretend to power in Whitehall.

The report should be required reading for all Liberal Democrat candidates for local Elections next May. There is only one name on the report’s cover – lead author, Michela Palese, Research and Policy Officer, Electoral Reform Society. At first glance you will see this is not the outpourings of some single tortured soul, but the collective views garnered from a cast of hundreds drawn from across the political spectrum.

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Posted in Books and Local government | 10 Comments
Aidan Jenkins

We need to ensure our ‘Green Spaces’ are protected at all costs

By Aidan Jenkins | Thu 26th August 2021 - 5:46 pm

I’ve recently read the agenda items that my local council have put on their website and I’m dismayed that the term ‘Open Spaces’ is being adopted instead of ‘Green Spaces.’

This for me is far more than simple semantics. I don’t doubt that our Borough does indeed have many Open Spaces, but the desire to treat these as synonymous with Green Spaces is an hugely cynical move. This I feel would make it far easier and clearly more palatable for residents when our cynical council sells off our Green Spaces and makes way for the latest housing development. When challenged, selling Open Spaces sounds far less damaging or controversial.

Of course I understand the need to balance the planning and housing needs of my area, but I’m hugely concerned that far too often our planning for houses and developments is pushed through to appease big business and make money, at the expense of the health and well-being of local residents. Opposition to such plans, even when 2,000 residents oppose something, is seemingly paid lip service.

Greater emphasis should be placed on social housing. Is 10% for each new development really sufficient? Why not 50%? If there really is a ‘housing crisis’, is this really going to be solved by making developers and builders richer? Our current model of planning is clearly unsustainable?

As part of our ongoing strategy and policy for building a fairer Britain we need to be much more radical in our approach and stricter on our commitment to plans that we have a negative impact on our long term health and well-being. Should building for sustainable homes therefore always be carbon neutral and therefore enshrined in law? The risk to these Green Spaces and therefore an ongoing legacy for our children/grandchildren is at stake.

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Liz Green

Helping us protect biodiversity with the help of a Lord or two

By Liz Green | Mon 16th August 2021 - 4:00 pm

We really should make use of the peers who have local government experience in the Lords more, so I decide to.

We have a site in Kingston where biodiversity is being destroyed. Seething Wells Filter Beds is a ‘Site of Importance for Nature Conservation’ and Metropolitan Open Land where nature had flourished after Thames Water left in the late 90s, but now the private owners are spraying pesticides, draining the standing water, cutting back grasslands and trees. They have even resorted to using goats to munch though all the vegetation on site! And as a council we are pretty powerless to stop them!

Sound familiar?

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Posted in Local government | Also tagged | 2 Comments
John Marriott

Real recovery starts with local government

By John Marriott | Fri 23rd July 2021 - 4:08 pm

I’m sure that some of you may see my name and the title of this article and think: “There he is, banging on about local government yet again”. Guilty as charged, Your Honour. The reason for my ‘banging on’ again has been prompted by an article in today’s Guardian by one of its leader writers, entitled ‘Local Politics is cutting a path for Labour’. Being the Guardian, the answer would of course be Labour. Wouldn’t it? However, the writer’s sudden discovery that there IS political life outside the Westminster bubble is welcome. However, some of us have been well ahead of him down the road to Damascus and, having served as councillors for many years – in my case thirty – we know most of the pitfalls.

What I have discovered is that you can succeed in local government by dint of your personality rather than the colour of the rosette you wear. If Labour is waking up to the potential of local government, why isn’t the party that turned community politics into an art form?

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The Voice

New Lib Dem mayor of Truro: I’m working out how to use my platform to make others suffer less

By The Voice | Sun 30th May 2021 - 10:55 am

Last week, Liberal Democrat Steven Webb became Mayor of Truro.

A Lib Dem since his teenage years, he was first elected to Truro City Council in 2017.

In 1991, he was paralysed in an accident.

The BBC has done a profile of Steven.

He talked about what he hopes to achieve as Mayor:

In a time where clinically vulnerable people have had to isolate for so long, I see it as an opportunity to make sure there are no groups left behind and we rebuild from the pandemic together.

There are so many people who have self-isolated and have hardly left their flats.

We’ve got to make sure everybody is included – that will help businesses, that will help Truro and that will reduce suffering.

It’s time we had a vision to keep the amazing heritage of cobbled streets and granite pavements but make it open to everybody.

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The Voice

Lib Dem Amanda Hopgood to lead Durham County Council

By The Voice | Thu 27th May 2021 - 11:23 am

Great news from Durham. Liberal Democrat Councillor Amanda Hopgood has taken over as Durham County Council leader after Labour lost their majority (and 21 seats) in May’s local elections. 

From the BBC:

The alliance, made up of Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, independents and a Green councillor, officially took over at the council’s annual meeting on Wednesday.

Ms Hopgood, who leads the Liberal Democrat group, said she was “honoured and privileged” to have been elected leader.

She said: “County Durham is a fantastic place, not just for those of

…

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Lord William Wallace

Building back neglected communities

By Lord William Wallace | Thu 7th January 2021 - 10:31 am

Embed from Getty Images

Behind the future economic and political relationship between the UK and the EU, and the (mis)management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the question of how to revive the towns and cities of the north of England (and its other marginal communities) will loom in 2021 as one of the key issues in UK politics.  Resentment of industrial decline, followed by cuts in funding for local government, education and transport, fuelled support first for leaving the EU and then for deserting Labour.  Boris Johnson has pledged to invest in bringing prosperity back to former industrial communities.  Keir Starmer is feeling his way towards regaining their support, more by embracing their conservative values than promising massive spending.  But what do Liberal Democrats have to offer them?

This raises existential problems for all three parties.  Johnson’s promises imply a larger state, with higher taxes, engaging in rebuilding local and regional economies – anathema to the small-state libertarians who now crowd the Conservative backbenches.  Starmer is struggling to reconcile the metropolitan liberals who provide much of his activist base with the social nostalgia these communities cling to.  But we, too, are a party of university towns and graduates, liberals in the widest sense: we cannot follow Starmer in attempting to embrace rediscovered ‘working class values’, which in any case many of the younger generation in such communities do not share.

We do however have determined local activists in many of these neglected communities, with hopes of winning local elections in May or June.  So what should our platform be, consistent with our values?  Can we make the future of local democracy itself an issue that will appeal?  The Conservatives clearly despise local government: their preference for awarding contracts to multinational companies rather than partnering with local authorities to handle responses to the pandemic has been an expensive disaster. Bullying local government on school closures has been as bad.  Moving bits of central departments to ‘red wall’ seats while keeping power in London is a poor substitute for devolving power.  But we need to think carefully how best to present a case for stronger local government and less direction from London, if we want to win over discontented voters.

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Holly Burton

How we championed a growing anti-discrimination campaign and made our council a more inclusive employer

By Holly Burton | Mon 30th November 2020 - 1:06 pm

In November’s Full Council, Hull City Council (HCC) unanimously passed a motion calling for a proactive, zero-tolerance anti-discrimination policy and backed a campaign for the law to be changed to make this mandatory for all organisations.

In the summer, the former president of Hull University Union founded a campaign called @MakeDiversityCount following her experience of racism in her role – and how the university was not equipped to deal with it. Her story and subsequent petition calling for all organisations to have a clear, robust and effective policy prompted me to investigate the situation at HCC, which she was pleased to support.

I did some research and discovered a number of potential failings at the council. Despite pockets of good practice, the evidence suggested many did not feel comfortable speaking up: lack of awareness of the reporting processes and the fear that they would not be taken seriously were among the suspected reasons for this. This simply wasn’t good enough.

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Rebecca Cave

Why registering to vote is good for your wealth and health

By Rebecca Cave | Wed 21st October 2020 - 9:00 am
You will almost certainly be registered to vote if you are reading Liberal Democrat Voice, as you are a politically engaged individual. But are all your neighbours, friends and family also on the electoral roll?
Feel free to share this article with them, as adapted for your local Council.
If you are not registered to vote, you could be harming your chances of getting credit when you need it, and even your access to a home-delivered COVID-19 test.
You are not automatically registered to vote, (included on the electoral roll), even if you have lived here for many years. You should register to

…

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Mark Valladares

Tales from a Small Parish: welcome to Dibley?…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 19th October 2020 - 12:45 pm

For those of you who live in urban conurbations, your concept of a Parish Council is possibly associated with the TV series “The Vicar of Dibley”. Funny really, because the Vicar usually works with a Parochial Church Council, a very different animal indeed. But 30% of England’s population is covered by Parish Councils which, for the most part, operate under the radar of political activists…

I moved out of London more than a decade ago but hadn’t been here for very long before a vacancy arose on the Parish Council and, well, …

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Posted in Local government | Also tagged | 6 Comments
Bablin Molik

My experiences of being a woman Councillor of colour

By Bablin Molik | Mon 5th October 2020 - 4:43 pm

I am very proud to say that I was elected as a Liberal Democrat councillor in 2017 to serve the residents of Cyncoed and Lakeside at Cardiff County Council. Cardiff, capital city of Wales, is very cosmopolitan, a city that celebrates its diversity, but still fails to represent its population in the make-up of the council chamber and the workforce within the council.

I had stood in local elections before in a different area and did notice the ballot papers that came in with crosses next to my ward colleague names and not mine and still this time same occurred on some ballot papers, but luckily I secured just enough votes to become the third and last candidate to be elected. When you see such ballots, many questions and answers come to your mind, why did they not vote me? They don’t know me personally so is it my name, the origin of the name, my faith or the colour of my skin that they considered more than anything I had to offer?

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NewsHound

Over 100 East Midlands Councillors sign letter calling for halt to Unitary Council plans

By NewsHound | Mon 5th October 2020 - 11:57 am

Over 100 Liberal Democrat councillors from across the East Midlands have signed a letter to the Secretary of State for Local Government, Robert Jenrick MP, calling for a halt to controversial Government plans to abolish Borough and District Councils across the region and replace them with larger Unitary authorities.

The letter, signed by 118 Councillors, was jointly authored by Lib Dem Hinckley and Bosworth Borough and Leicestershire County Councillor Michael Mullaney and Leader of Chesterfield Lib Dem Councillors Paul Holmes.

Michael Mullaney said;

Abolishing Borough and District Councils and creating huge unitary authorities would be disruptive at anytime. But to be considering this

…

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Posted in Local government and News | 7 Comments
York Membery

An interview with Cllr Gareth Roberts

By York Membery | Mon 21st September 2020 - 2:50 pm

Gareth Roberts, Liberal Democrat Leader of the London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames (LBRUT), tells York Membery about the challenges he’s faced in dealing with the Covid-19 crisis, the specific Lib Dem approach he’s sought to pursue, and his misgivings about the Johnson government’s response to the pandemic…

How has the LBRUT coped with the fallout from the pandemic?

Reasonably well. Every local authority has been hit in one form or another but in terms of keeping infections down, limiting the number of deaths in the borough, keeping residents and businesses supported and, vitally, keeping residents informed we’ve performed well. And that’s not me being some Town Hall Trump; we conducted a poll of residents recently. 63% of respondents said Richmond was doing a good job in responding to the pandemic, whereas 61% thought the Tories at Westminster was doing poorly.

What are the biggest covid-linked challenges that the council has faced?

School closures was a biggie. I think people have largely forgotten how contentious that was. Some residents thought it was entirely wrong, some wanted us to move far more quickly and there was a real lack of direction from the Tory Government. More recently, the real challenge has been anti-social behaviour – before the pubs reopened people would meet friends in their local parks and green spaces and though most behaved themselves there was a hardcore of people who stayed far too late, were far too rowdy and used the parks (and even neighbouring front gardens) as toilets.

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2020 – The year the housing was hit by a maverick algorithm 

By Andy Boddington | Sun 13th September 2020 - 12:00 pm

Alongside Planning for the Future White Paper (see previous article), ministers published without fanfare a second consultation on changes to the planning system. Council housing targets will be set centrally using a crude formula that distributes responsibility for the government’s ambition for 300,000 new homes a year round the country. But the formula will allocate more housing to higher priced areas such as the south and east, while reducing ambitions for the Northern Powerhouse. A ‘short-term’ waiver of S106 requirements for most small sites could cut affordable housing delivery by up to 20%. A quarter of affordable housing delivered will be for sale at a 25% discount at the expense of social and affordable rented homes. 

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2020 – The year government took planning away from the people 

By Andy Boddington | Sat 12th September 2020 - 12:00 pm

2020 will be remembered for many things. The pandemic and flooding among them. It will also be remembered as the year they took planning away from the people. 

The government’s proposals in the white paper Planning for the Future and associated documents are bold. They will transfer many local planning powers from councils and communities to Whitehall and the planning inspectorate in Bristol. Ministers want planning by checklist instead of considered, albeit sometimes difficult, planning deliberations that lead to quality developments. 

There are sensible ideas in the government’s proposals but they are countered by its determination to take democracy and localism out of planning. 

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Mark Valladares

5-6 September 2020 – the weekend’s press release

By Mark Valladares | Sun 6th September 2020 - 11:00 pm

Government must support local councils instead of imposing top down reorganisation

Ahead of the Government’s motion on the Local Government Boundary Commission tomorrow, Liberal Democrat Local Government spokesperson Tim Farron said:

The Chair of the Local Government Boundary Commissions looks like they’re going to have a lot on their plate. Just last week the Tories proposed abolishing nearly every council and replacing them with larger, less accountable, ‘super-councils.’

At a time when local authorities and the government are struggling to tackle the pandemic, it is not the time for a reorganisation of deckchairs on the titanic.

Liberal Democrats believe change should come from the

…

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Caron Lindsay

Ed Davey uses first speech to highlight Lib Dem successes in local government

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 5th September 2020 - 2:28 pm

I did something today that I don’t think I’ve ever done before in the best part of a quarter of a century of membership – attended an ALDC AGM. The Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors and Campaigners provides the heartbeat to which council candidates and their teams work. If you follow their advice, you are way more likely to win. The ALDC mindset is to be plugged into your local community and working hard for local people all year round.

They usually have their AGM at conference and it almost always clashes with something else I have to do, but I went this morning to see Baroness Ros Scott chairing and a lively discussion about how the Tory plans to rip the heart out of local government are a very bad idea.

The AGM was part of a three hour conference held on Zoom. It was very well attended and had some very fascinating sessions. I went to a panel discussion on the Green Recovery with Friends of the Earth and another about our distinctive voice in next year’s elections. I’ll write them up later.

But, first, this was new leader Ed Davey’s first speech since his election ten days ago. He talked about his visit to a Stockport Fish and Chip shop yesterday and his conversations with the owner and staff there.  The manager of 13 years standing, who had been written off at school, was about to take over the business as the owners were retiring. Another member of staff was a WASPI woman – hit by the injustice of women born in the 1950s having to wait an extra six years for their state pension.

Although he had had some hard words for the party in his acceptance speech about people thinking we weren’t on their side, he emphasised that this was not the case with our local campaigners who make it their mission to listen to what people are feeling.

He praised Lib Dem councils for their action on environmental matters. He mentioned York City Council’s “Don’t be a tosser” anti litter campaign., Chelmsford’s tree planting and Sutton’s low-energy secondary school.

His listening exercise (which is a much better term than the Orwellian sounding National Listening Project) extends to party members too – he said that he wanted feedback on what he was saying and doing and to hear from us about what we wanted the party to be saying. He emphasised how we needed to work as a team and listen to all voices.

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Paul Tyler

Paul Tyler writes…..Listening is just the start…

By Paul Tyler | Tue 1st September 2020 - 4:58 pm

Once we have honed our listening skills we should surely seek to improve ways in which people are themselves empowered.  How can they make their voices and their votes more effective ?

Here are a few immediate and urgent opportunities:

Fair Votes 

Despite the Conservative manifesto promise to make sure “every vote counts the same – a cornerstone of democracy” the current inequality is outrageous.  It takes 33 times as many votes for Green Party supporters to elect an MP as for SNP supporters, with big differences for Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats in between. Voters are cheated by the First-Past-The-Post system.

Ed Davey has committed himself to the cross-party campaign.    But what should be the first priority?   Persuading the Labour leadership to wake up, and accept the strong support of their membership for reform of elections to the Commons?   Or concentrate on extending the STV success in local authority elections in Scotland – now to be repeated in Wales – to ensure voters in England do not miss out?  

If the electoral system is the bedrock of our democracy, then surely some consistency throughout the UK is essential ?

Who Votes?

Liberal Democrats have long campaigned for votes for all citizens when they reach 16.  We led national efforts to extend the franchise for the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum and were only thwarted by combined Conservative and Labour Peers when we pressed then for 16-year-olds to be able to vote in the 2016 EU Referendum.   Again, Scotland and Wales are leading the way, and the case for UK consistency is now overwhelming.

UK citizens working or living abroad are often affected by political decisions taken here – most notoriously on Brexit – but their representation is inadequate.  We want them to vote in separate constituencies so that they have MPs who are committed to looking after their particular interests.

Similarly, EU residents working and resident in the UK make a substantial contribution, not least with various local taxes, and should continue to be allowed to vote in local elections.

Subsidiarity

The imminent Devolution White Paper, we are told, will force through the amalgamation of two-tier councils to create more unitary authorities, all with the compulsory addition of elected mayors.   This looks suspiciously like centralisation rather than decentralisation, and is certainly not devolution. Whitehall retains the financial stranglehold, treating elected local representatives as simply a delivery mechanism for national policy priorities.

We have long championed subsidiarity = bringing decisions as close as possible to those who will be affected by them.  The present Government is moving in the opposite direction. 

The example of the SNP Government is also salutary.  Concentrating power at that level, with little devolution to lower tiers of governance at community levels, is no way to spread empowerment.

Transparency

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Tahir Maher

An opinion piece

By Tahir Maher | Wed 22nd July 2020 - 12:00 pm

Both the Tories and Labour have a dominant elected represented presence across the UK on many different bodies. Because of their current dominance, people almost expect that they should be represented. Such prevalence has allowed some poor performance, by these parties, to be masked/accepted as the public find it difficult to see beyond, what has become, their own basic political norms.

The Lib Dems message is not being heard. We live in a liberal country that has liberal values, a liberal outlook on life and politics, and there is one real party that represents those values – the Liberal Democrats. We can’t get aligned with these dominate traits that the voters live by. You do have to ask the question why?

I am not going to go off on some socio-political anthropologically discussion, simply as I am not qualified to do so. But I do want to look at why we are not being heard or are more relevant across the country.

There are many reasons – not enough reach in the ethnic minority’s communities – yes OK, we have rightly supported more women candidates in the party for internal and external positions (although I would say where we have replaced white middle-class men, in most cases, with white middle-class women and not women who are care workers, single mothers, from working-class families etc.), we don’t have any traction in urban housing estates and so on.

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Mark Hofman

What is in a name? 

By Mark Hofman | Sat 18th July 2020 - 9:01 am

Lib Dem run Watford Borough Council this week voted unanimously to pass a motion in favour of reviewing our town’s street names with links to slave and colonial history.

The Black Lives Matter Campaign and others have rightly highlighted the harm slavery, indentured labour and exploitation inflicted on individuals and whole societies during the cruel period of slavery – the legacy of which continues to this day.

It is important to remember that sickness and destitution were rife amongst slaves, there was a significant need for acclimatisation for immigrants to any slave colony, however, many slave owners failed to do this and as a result thousands of slaves died within weeks of arrival.

Others eventually succumbed to the poor working conditions on plantations and within other slave roles. Slaves were literally worked to death.

As part of the slave trade whole families were imported from Hindu, Muslim, African and European cultures, living together in barracks in often squalid conditions with minimal privacy.

Many slaves committed suicide, with trade unions and strikes made illegal by the governments of the West Indies.

Even indentured slaves had to seek permission to leave their plantations, corporal punishments were enforced for crimes including insulting the plantation owner.

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Gary Malcolm

Tory centralisation has failed us on Coronavirus. It’s time to consider the local alternatives.

By Gary Malcolm | Thu 25th June 2020 - 9:53 am

We have seen how the government has acted too slow to implement a lockdown and not given councils enough resources to be able to help people locally.

Coronavirus has also shown us how the Tory government believes it is best to deal with the Coronavirus centrally rather than making more use of local government. As a Liberal Democrat I believe strongly in localism – one of the party’s founding principles.

In Ealing, despite the Council being run by the Labour party, the Liberal Democrats have managed to take a more active role than many opposition parties. Liberal Democrats in Ealing have been able to make decisions locally that affect the people we serve during the Coronavirus period.

To deal with Coronavirus effectively, we need money and support from the national government – not dictates. It is important there is trust in the local government partners. Yet this Tory government has done exactly the opposite of that.

Firstly, on Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): if we had waited for the government’s supplies to arrive, our care homes would have run out very quickly. Instead we bought large supplies alongside other West London boroughs so that our care homes had regular supplies.

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