Lib Dem Deputy Leader Jo Swinson was on the Daily Politics this week talking about her two years out of politics after her defeat in 2015 and what motivated her to come back. She cited the threat to liberal values posed by Brexit and Trump and the unwelcome prospect of another divisive referendum on Scottish independence as the driving forces which spurred her to contest her seat again.
Watch her discusser own comeback – and whether Nick Clegg could do the same, here:
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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3 Comments
Wow!
Jo delivers quality politics one more time.
Let me give good feminist news from the Dutch coalition government negotiations which are concluded at the moment I’m typing this.
D66, the Dutch Liberal Democrats, delivered the bulk of the women Cabinet- and ordinary ministers (“staatssecretarissen”) in the new Liberal/Christian Democrat government led by VVD (=Dutch NatLib) party leader Mark Rutte. The other liberal party, VVD, delivered just one woman, MEP Cora van Nieuwenhuizen.
The “Rutte III Cabinet” will have
*) our Kaisa Ollongren (half Swedish), lieutenant mayor of Amsterdam hounding AirBnB and Uber into civility, as Viceprime minister;
*) top UN diplomat and succesful Syria Chemical disarmament negitiator Sigrid Kaag as Foreign Secretary for the Third World and Export Promotion; the new VVD Foreign Secretary Halbe Zijlstra is a Kissinger-like “Realist” in foreign relations, so that could produce fireworks;
*) Ingid van Enmgelshoven, former succesful Education Alderman and former party president orgaizing iour 2006-2016 LibDems-like resurrection, as Education Secretyary beside a Dutch Reformed Church Educatin Secretary;
and so on.
So glad to have D66. I always feel that we the Lib Dems are virtually the same party! Still hoping that against all odds, we can exit from Brexit!
I omitted to mention that Mrs. Van Engelshoven has been Education Alderman in The Hague in 2010-’17, and recently switched to become an MP.
I hope to post a separate piece about the D66 contribution to the new coalition government very soon.
It seems to be as big a challenge as the Cameron-Clegg coalition was, with Liberal-Christian Democratic debates inside the coalition, and
*) leftist parties, from Labour to the Greens, coalescing into a triumvirate with a “free beer tomorow”-populism looking suspiciously much like Corbyns latest election manifesto; and
*) conservative / rightist-populist Euroscepticism both in the Dutch parliament, but also in the new Austrian coalition, not to mention Poland and Hungary.