Tag Archives: scottish liberal club

Edinburgh book launch – all invited

By Michael Meadowcroft | Thu 17th April 2025 - 3:23 pm

Following on from the events at the National Liberal Club and at the party’s Harrogate Spring Conference, the John Stuart Mill Institute is completing its trio of book launches at the Scottish Liberal Club, 4 Clifton Terrace, Edinburgh EH12 5DR, at 7.30pm, Friday, 25th April. All colleagues are warmly welcome.

The Institute has sponsored the book “When We Speak of Freedom – Radical Liberalism in an Age of Crisis” as the definitive current publication on Liberal philosophy and values. The twenty chapter writers include a number of respected politicians, academics and specialists, including Sir Vince Cable, Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman, Professor David Howarth and Bob Marshall-Andrews KC. The editors are two young academics, Paul Hindley and Ben Wood, who will be happy to answer any questions you may have – contact details are below.

Of particular importance to the Scottish media launch is the chapter on “Federalism from a Scottish Perspective” by Ross Finnie, former MSP and, at Holyrood, ex-Minister for Rural Development, 1999 to 2007. Previous to his time in the Scottish parliament he was a Councillor for twenty-two years. Ross will be present at the media launch.

Another leading Scottish Liberal Democrat, Denis Robertson Sullivan, has contributed a chapter on “Ending the UK Housing Crisis”. Denis is a former Treasurer of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. He was the Chair of Scotland Shelter and the Vice-Chair of Shelter UK.

If you would like more information about the John Stuart Mill Institute please consult our website which is www.jsmi.org.uk or get in touch with me: Michael Meadowcroft, JSMI Trustee, [email protected].

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Vince Cable to liberals: Don’t despair, go local, celebrate identities and embrace social democratic policies

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 5th April 2017 - 1:45 pm

Last night, Vince Cable gave the annual John G Gray Lecture to the Scottish Liberal Club in Edinburgh. John G Gray was a leading Scottish figure in the fightback from near extinction in the middle of the last century. He was at one point the only Liberal councillor in Scotland. Vince observed that at the same time as he was successfully fighting a ridiculous proposal for a ring road in Glasgow, Gray was doing the same in Edinburgh, making sure that a proposal that would have damaged much of the city’s heritage never came to fruition.

The subject of his talk was Brexit, Trump and the Crisis of Liberalism. He set out four things that we should do to stop the “insidious” politics of populism and nationalism taking root.

Firstly, he looked at some of the reasons for populism taking hold. History has many examples, from the South Sea Bubble, to the Depression to the 2008 crash, of economic heart attacks being followed after some years by populism. When people lose out, they turn to the extremes and we have over the past decade seen the fall in post war living standards. Significantly, the measures used to keep the economy afloat, low interest rates and quantitative easing, ensured that pensioners’ savings didn’t grow. That resulted in discontent and nostalgia became a powerful emotional driver.

He warned that as the populists fail, the search for a scapegoat would turn on the judiciary and the other elements which underpin our democracy. He highlighted the Daily Fail’s talk of the enemy within – where the Lib Dems were top of the list. Populists do what they can to delegitimise anything that gets in their way.