Tag Archives: theresa may

NewsHound

LibLink: Tim Farron: Whether you are Leave or Remain, Theresa May just betrayed you on Brexit

By NewsHound | Wed 18th January 2017 - 10:51 am

Tim Farron wrote a long response to Theresa May’s speech yesterday for the Guardian. Here are some of the highlights;

The new Ukip leader, Paul Nuttall, himself commented that May’s words could have come straight from a Ukip party conference speech. Farage and Nuttall might like to convince themselves that the referendum was an endorsement of their nationalist, populist politics, but that is an injustice to most of the British people who voted leave. Pursuing Ukip’s warped vision will not only have severe consequences on our economy, it will also severely damage our standing in the world.

A reckless exit from the

…

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Paul Walter

Farron: May is leading the UK towards a hard Brexit that was never on the ballot paper

By Paul Walter | Tue 17th January 2017 - 12:52 pm

Reacting to Theresa May’s Brexit speech, Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said:

Theresa May is leading the UK towards a hard Brexit that was never on the ballot paper. This is a theft of democracy, a presumption that the 51.9% of people who voted to leave meant the most extreme version of Brexit available.

The BBC reports further remarks from Tim:

Lib Dem leader Tim Farron says Mrs May has adopted “Nigel Farage’s Brexit plan” which is bad news for the UK, accusing the prime minister of “waving the white flag across the white cliffs of Dover” regarding single market exit.

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Caron Lindsay

Now, Theresa, you weren’t really the driving force behind mental health crisis care improvements, now, were you?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 8th January 2017 - 8:28 pm

So, Theresa May gave an interview to Sky’s Sophy Ridge today in which she gave the biggest signal yet that leaving the single market is very much on the agenda.

In time honoured tradition, there’s a nice petition you can sign if you agree with Tim Farron that “reckless plans to leave the Single Market would make us all poorer.”

But it’s something else she said in her interview that grabbed my attention. She had moved from saying not much actually on Brexit to a very small amount on the NHS to talking about her speech tomorrow. Apparently mental health is a priority of hers. Who knew? The Prime Minister said:

If I can give you an example of something I have already done, when I was in the Home Office one of the issues that concerned me was people in mental health crisis being taken to a police cell as a place of last resort.  It wasn’t good for them, it wasn’t good for the police.  Actually we’ve changed that and we’ve seen the number for whom that happens coming down by 80% and that was a small sum of money that the NHS has been able to put in in order to ensure that there are more, for example more and different places of safety for people …

“I have already done.” Really?

Well, let’s look at an unbiased source, shall we? The Government website which announced this initiative back in 2014 didn’t mention Theresa May anywhere. The main names were Liberal Democrat ministers Nick Clegg and Norman Lamb. Yes, there was Home Office involvement, but it was Lamb who had done all the work bringing it together across government. He was the driving force behind all the mental health measures introduced by the Coalition Government.

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Matthew Campbell

Electoral reform, Donald Trump … and Theresa May

By Matthew Campbell | Thu 10th November 2016 - 5:30 pm

 

For years, it was said that there was a threat to western democracies from far-right parties with extremist or populist opinions. The BNP were, in the 2000s, supposed to be ‘our’ version of this phenomenon, before they collapsed and – arguably – their vote went elsewhere.

But, still, the possibility of a small extremist nationalist party gaining undue influence was held to be a convincing argument against electoral reform. I think it may now be possible to say with great certainty that this was either a fallacy or a lie.

Why? Because there are two countries where, this year, populist/nationalist agendas have upset the existing political order: Firstly, the USA (in the person of Mr Trump); and secondly, this country (in the shape of Brexit). That is to say, two countries with plurality voting, who have historically rejected voting reform and proportionality as alien to their political culture.

And why might this have come to pass?

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Mark Valladares

Theresa May went to India, and all I got was a lousy T-shirt…

By Mark Valladares | Wed 9th November 2016 - 3:52 pm

I am one of those people who have often wondered why British governments pay relatively little attention to India. After all, it’s a big country, with an emerging middle class who want to travel, buy luxury goods and send their children to good universities overseas. Why wouldn’t we want to build stronger links with a Commonwealth country that is likely to be one of the world’s largest economies before too long? And yet, the attention of our politicians and diplomats often seems biased towards China.

Frankly though, after Theresa May’s trip to New Delhi and Bengaluru, I almost wish that she …

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Paul Walter

Nissan announcement – did May promise any cash for Qashqais?

By Paul Walter | Fri 28th October 2016 - 1:55 pm

At the end of the day, we’re all Brits together. I rejoice that Nissan have announced the production of the new Qashqai and X-Trails at Sunderland.

Tim Farron has commented:

The commitment to Sunderland by Nissan is obviously very welcome. Ensuring that jobs are protected at the plant is vital for Sunderland and our economy.

However, it is utterly ridiculous that Theresa May is having to give special assurances to key manufacturers in order to deal with the Brexit fallout her government is creating.

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Phil Aisthorpe

Brexit is a war already lost

By Phil Aisthorpe | Thu 27th October 2016 - 1:23 pm

Is she or isn’t she? Since her accession, the public has been puzzled by Theresa May’s stance on Brexit. Was her lukewarm support for Remain merely self-preservation, just wanting to keep out of the fray? Was she a closet Leaver? Well now we know. The Guardian suggests that she is indeed a Remainer, but not just any old Remainer, but a Tory Remainer and so quite happy to switch sides. Paddy Ashdown summed it up in this Tweet.


But what does this tell us about the Tory mind? Well it tells me that the Conservatives are a party unencumbered by the constraints of values and principles, a party where politics is merely a game to be won or lost. Not for the Tory are there any of the questions of morality or conscience that exercise the minds of other parties. The Tory has become Nietzsche’s Übermensch, the self-mastered individual contemptuous of namby-pamby liberalism.

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NewsHound

May is ‘blithely ignoring her own dire warnings” about hard Brexit – Tim Farron

By NewsHound | Wed 26th October 2016 - 4:07 pm

Revelations that Theresa May secretly warned about the economic effects of Brexit produced this sharp reaction from Tim Farron.

It is disappointing that Theresa May lacked the political courage to warn the British public as she did a group of bankers in private about the devastating economic effects of Brexit.

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NewsHound

‘Theresa May is making the UK a nastier, more divided and more resentful country’ – Tim Farron

By NewsHound | Mon 24th October 2016 - 10:51 am

This evening at Queen Mary University, London, Tim Farron will be speaking at an event with The Runnymede Trust addressing the issue of post-Brexit hate crime and rising xenophobia. This occasion is part of “Black History Month”. Other speakers are Dr Omar Khan of the Runnymede Trust, Baroness Meral Hussein-Ece, the Lib Dem Equalities Spokesperson and Sunder Katwala of British Future.

Here’s a sneak preview of some of the things Tim will say:

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Mark Argent

Witney could be a turning point for the Lib Dems

By Mark Argent | Mon 24th October 2016 - 9:33 am

The result in the Witney by-election was a substantial swing to the LibDems, jumping from fourth place on 6.8% to second place on 30.2%. Liz Leffman and her team did an outstanding job, and the party was clearly ready to rally to the cause.

Over the next few days there were speculations about what that would mean if replicated at a General Election, with estimates of the number of seats likely to switch from Tory to LibDem put between 26 and 51. The statistician in me is wary of those extrapolations: there are lots of unknowns at by-elections, and British politics is especially turbulent at the moment.

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NewsHound

Tim Farron: Theresa May is putting views of hardline Brexiteers first

By NewsHound | Fri 21st October 2016 - 2:57 pm

Commenting on Theresa May’s first European Council summit, where her short statement on Brexit was reportedly met with silence from other EU leaders, Liberal Democrat Leader Tim Farron said:

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Paul Walter

Events of the week highlight the courage and clarity of Tim Farron’s stance

By Paul Walter | Sat 8th October 2016 - 10:15 am

It’s been quite a week in British politics. The Tory conference and the UKIP self-combustion serve to crystallise a distinct change. A sea change, if you like.

We heard Amber Rudd saying companies will have to register “foreign” employees (next step getting them to wear badges?) and Theresa May hard Brexiting.

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Geoff Crocker

The divisive inconsistencies of Theresa May

By Geoff Crocker | Fri 7th October 2016 - 2:15 pm

Theresa May’s triumphalism over the Brexit election result is divisive and shocking. 48% of the electorate voted Remain, apparently including, inconsistently, Theresa May. Her statement that anyone continuing to campaign to Remain is ‘subverting democracy’ is equally shocking. Do Remainers no longer have the right to freedom of speech and democratic campaigning? The Brexiteers campaigned long and hard against a previous democratic vote to join the EU, so Remainers are equally free to do the same now. And they should. I’m ready to join and support any such campaign.

Her claim to be uniting the country whilst setting ‘the working class’ against the ‘international elite’ is yet again shocking. Caricaturing a whole group of people who, in the main, are hard-working intelligent professionals working internationally in this way, and pitting them against the ‘working class’, is outrageous. These groups of people should and can respect and value each other in a civilised society.

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Posted in Op-eds | 11 Comments
Newspuppy

Tim on May’s speech: Tories are reckless, divisive and uncaring

By Newspuppy | Wed 5th October 2016 - 4:40 pm

In response to the Prime Minister’s conference speech in Birmingham, Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said:

Regardless of the rhetoric, the Conservatives have moved to the right. The Prime Minister’s words about a pitch to the centre-ground are utterly divorced from her party’s actions over the last few days. The Conservatives are reckless, divisive and uncaring. They are the fence-building, snooping-on-your-emails, foreign-worker-listing party and that is something that most people will be revulsed by.

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NewsHound

Soft Brexit preferred choice of Britons as poll shows willingness to compromise on immigration

By NewsHound | Wed 5th October 2016 - 2:10 pm

The Independent reports:

A majority of people would rather the UK have a soft Brexit, which sees the country give concessions on EU immigration in return for access to the single market, a poll has found.

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Paul Walter

Is Theresa May frog-marching us out of the single market through a covert process?

By Paul Walter | Tue 4th October 2016 - 12:15 pm

I have now read Theresa May’s speech from the Conservative conference on Sunday.

The key passage appears to be this one (with my bolding):

…we will seek the best deal possible as we negotiate a new agreement with the European Union. I want that deal to reflect the kind of mature, cooperative relationship that close friends and allies enjoy. I want it to include cooperation on law enforcement and counter-terrorism work. I want it to involve free trade, in goods and services. I want it to give British companies the maximum freedom to trade with and operate in the Single Market – and let European businesses do the same here. But let me be clear. We are not leaving the European Union only to give up control of immigration again. And we are not leaving only to return to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.

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The Voice

LibLink: Nick Clegg – Brexit is proving that the Tories are no longer the party of business

By The Voice | Tue 4th October 2016 - 9:15 am

Writing in the Evening Standard, Nick Clegg argues that the Conservative party poses a serious threat to the long-term health of the British economy:

May’s party is now poised to inflict more damage on the British economy in one Parliament than John McDonnell could manage in a decade.

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NewsHound

Farron: May’s Hard Brexit “means disaster for British jobs, businesses and our economy”

By NewsHound | Sun 2nd October 2016 - 9:53 pm

Tim Farron has commented on Theresa May’s Conservative conference speech:

Theresa May has just confirmed that we are going for a Hard Brexit. This means no single market for Britain.

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Katharine Pindar

Heart of England, reject the Tories now

By Katharine Pindar | Sun 2nd October 2016 - 11:45 am

Perhaps we should have known. The Witney constituency is West Oxfordshire, a quiet, beautiful farming area of fields dotted with golden-stone villages and small towns. It is an area for hunting, real ale and country dancing. Among the little towns is Chipping Norton. And Chipping Norton became identified with a ‘set’, including David Cameron and Rebekah Brooks – and you remember then about the News of the World and the phone-hacking scandal.

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Paul Walter

“Devonwall” seat proposal – the government ignore Cornish pride at their peril

By Paul Walter | Fri 16th September 2016 - 2:45 pm

The Strand, Bude by paul walterThe Strand, Bude, Cornwall

On Wednesday I was lucky enough to be in a choir leading the singing of “Trelawny” in an ancient Cornish church. “Trelawny” or “The Song of Western Men” is the “unofficial Cornish national anthem” written by Rev R.S. Hawker. The congregation joined in with the choruses – most enthusiastically – and rapturous applause from “one and all” followed the song. It was a magical moment and reinforced that great feeling of community which one feels amongst Cornish people. There’s a real passion and pride about the Cornish nation.

The Boundary Commissioners and Theresa May should have been present at that church. I have a hunch that witnessing such strength of feeling, they would think again about their proposals for a “Devonwall” seat. The church in question is just south of Bude and part of the proposed parliamentary constituency of Bideford, Bude and Launceston, straddling Devon and Cornwall – or, I should say, Cornwall and England.

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Chris Key

There may be a snap election – your country needs you to do your duty

By Chris Key | Sat 20th August 2016 - 10:49 am

 

The key question on the mind of most journalists is whether Theresa May will call a snap general election. Personally as a supporter of fixed term parliaments I would not be in favour of this as we have had enough uncertainty of late.

Yet, there are very powerful reasons why she might do, which relate to the strength of our democracy.

Firstly the awkward squad of right wing Eurosceptics has far too much leverage in a government with a majority  of just 12. A group of 25 Tory Brexiteers in the Commons (2016 lexicon for those Major called bastards) are already meeting to try to form a policy which would aim to minimise immigration at the expense of our membership of the single market. I am not too old to remember the paralysis and internal division of the Major government over Europe and he had a bigger majority than May does. Indeed we know that Boris and Liam Fox have already began a spat worthy of my six and four year old girls over who should have the ability to call decisions in the Foreign Office. Mother May it would appear, was not amused.

If Theresa May were to call an election and win big, then she would have a comfortable majority to work with where she could come up with a Brexit Strategy without the influence of the awkward squad. I am not sure the City or most international busineses would be happy seeing their role dimminished just to enable the sulky teenagers IDS, Fox and David Davis get what they want when it comes to immigration (i.e. bringing numbers down to the impractical tens of thousands level promised by Cameron).

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Paul Walter

Through careful language, Theresa May leaves her options open on Brexit

By Paul Walter | Thu 21st July 2016 - 9:30 am

I’ve mentioned before that Theresa May is, as one might expect, using very careful language on post-Brexit options.

In her leadership launch statement, she said:

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NewsHound

LibLInk: Alistair Carmichael: Theresa May’s liberal rhetoric a surprise

By NewsHound | Wed 20th July 2016 - 10:29 am

Alistair Carmichael has written an article for today’s Scotsman in which he matches up Theresa May’s words on entering Downing Street to her actions in government. Certainly we can all remember Margaret Thatcher’s warm words about bringing peace and harmony when she entered No 10, and we know how that turned out.

For many people there were three main reasons for being pleased to see Theresa May enter No 10 Downing Street last week. Firstly she was not Boris Johnson; secondly she was not Michael Gove and thirdly she was not Andrea Leadsom. As a father, I felt it could have been worse. Mrs May, a vicar’s daughter we are told, delivered a little homily for the benefit of the world’s media outside her new residence. The rhetoric was good. I know from five years in coalition government that getting some Conservatives even to acknowledge the inequalities of modern life can be difficult. Here we had a Conservative prime minister not just acknowledging them but promising to tackle them.

But her record so far doesn’t quite reflect this:

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Caron Lindsay

Boris as Foreign Secretary? That was unexpected…

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 13th July 2016 - 10:44 pm

So, just as Theresa May left Buckingham Palace, I had to leave home to go for a meeting. When I stepped out into an Edinburgh street and checked my phone two hours later, I realised I’d stepped into a parallel universe.  I must have done. I mean, a new Prime Minister known for careful and cautious deliberation appointing a man who had grossly insulted the President of the United States just a few weeks ago as the country’s top diplomat? It’s probably worth reminding ourselves of Boris’s response to President Obama’s “back of the queue” speech.

Johnson, a high-profile figure in the campaign for Britain to leave the EU, wrote about the decision of the Obama administration to remove a bust of Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill from the Oval Office.

“Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender,” said Johnson in an article designed to hit back at Obama after the US president waded into the EU referendum debate on Friday.

As it happens, the bust was removed before Obama even took office. Again, like many of the Leave campaign’s claims, only the most casual relationship with the truth.

And then there was the time when he compared the EU to Hitler. 

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Joe Otten

Theresa May open thread

By Joe Otten | Tue 12th July 2016 - 11:05 am

So congratulations are in order to Theresa May on becoming Prime Minister.

May has usually been described as dull, diligent and effective, but I expect now that she has the top job a little more of her personality will be stamped on the government. She is famous for calling out the Conservatives for allowing themselves to be seen as the ‘nasty party’ and was considered a moderniser, but has not always risen above the nasty herself – the “Go home” billboards for example.

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Posted in Op-eds | 26 Comments
Paul Walter

Hopefully this will be the last stunning day in British politics for a while

By Paul Walter | Mon 11th July 2016 - 6:04 pm

Well, well, well. Yet another stunning day in British politics.

There we were expecting two months of two candidates touring constituency Conservative parties. And then suddenly we hear that we’ll have a new Prime Minister on Wednesday evening.

Our Prime Minister exits the stage humming a bar of the West Wing ending theme tune.

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Caron Lindsay

Think about Andrea Leadsom’s target audience

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 9th July 2016 - 3:52 pm

Most of the progressive side of social media is frothing in collective disgust at Andrea Leadsom’s comments in today’s Times (£).

There is no doubt that they were absolutely disgusting.

After explaining that, as a former banker, she understands “how the economy works and can really focus on turning it around” — unlike, by implication, the home secretary — she stresses that she is a “member of a huge family and that’s important to me. My kids are a huge part of my life, my sisters and my two half brothers are very close so I am very grounded and normal.” Mrs May, of course, has spoken of her heartbreak at realising that she could not have children.

In case the contrast is not clear enough, Mrs Leadsom goes on: “I am sure Theresa will be really sad she doesn’t have children so I don’t want this to be ‘Andrea has children, Theresa hasn’t’ because I think that would be really horrible, but genuinely I feel that being a mum means you have a very real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake. She possibly has nieces, nephews, lots of people, but I have children who are going to have children who will directly be a part of what happens next.” There is also an empathy that comes from motherhood, she suggests, “when you are thinking about the issues that other people have: you worry about your kids’ exam results, what direction their careers are taking, what we are going to eat on Sunday”.

Lest you think the Times might be making it up, here’s the audio:

It should go without saying that whether you have children or not, whether that’s by choice or not, has no bearing on whether you care about the future of our planet. However, what Leadsom did was made even nastier because she knew perfectly well that Theresa May and her husband had not been able to have children. The pain of infertility is really tough to go through, as you come to terms with the fact that your life is going to be different than you thought it would be. It gets harder as you see your contemporaries all having children and embracing family life. Leadsom disproves her own argument, that being a mother gives her more empathy.

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Caron Lindsay

David Laws on Marr: I want to expose how NHS chief was leant on to encourage debate on NHS funding

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 20th March 2016 - 10:59 am

It’s the second week of David Laws’ coalition revelations serialised in the Mail on Sunday. This week we have him telling us that:

To take them in turn:

You have to wonder why we bought and publicised the £8bn figure, too. It’s all very well for David Laws to tell Andrew Marr today that Norman Lamb was always sceptical about it, but I seem to recalls making a massive thing about how we were the only party who was going to meet the £8bn request in full. If we knew that the figure was nonsense then, why on earth did we not say loudly and lay out the choices that the nation faced in a much more realistic way?

On Marr, David Laws emphasised how the Lib Dems helped IDS veto Treasury requests for further welfare cuts, confirming that Osborne saw it as a cash cow.There are problems with this analysis, though.  Danny Alexander seemed to be hand in glove with Osborne on a lot of this stuff, at one point calling people affected by the Bedroom Tax “bedroom blockers.” Also, a lot of the really awful ideas, from the rape clause to the capping at two children were IDS’s idea.

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Paul Walter

2016 prediction: Miriam for LibDem leader

By Paul Walter | Sat 2nd January 2016 - 4:30 pm

MiriamOK. An apology for bare-faced clickbait, as well as a whole slew of excuses for actually, physically, buying the Daily Mail, are necessary:

  1. I couldn’t find a copy of i or The Times at Nero’s, so I was reduced to reading their free copy of the Daily Mail in a sort of post-modern ironist sort of way.
  2. I saw this “story” and thought it would provide an innocent scintilla of amusement for an otherwise bored LDV reader.
  3. In an attempt at mobile-detox, I had left my mobile at home. I therefore didn’t have a camera to take a pic of the page (right).
  4. I guessed (wrongly) that this story wouldn’t be available online but, anyway, guessed (rightly) that the printed page would “big up” this story more than the online version.
  5. I think this is the first Daily Mail I have bought for several years.
  6. I was otherwise bored.
  7. I was only following orders.
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NewsHound

Draft Investigatory Powers Bill – the key points and link to the full text

By NewsHound | Wed 4th November 2015 - 1:13 pm

The Guardian has helpfully just published this handy guide to the draft Investigatory Powers Bill, just announced in parliament by Teresa May:

  • Requires web and phone companies to store records of websites visited by every citizen for 12 months for access by police, security services and other public bodies.
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