Vince Cable came to Edinburgh yesterday on his tour of the country taking questions from members.
For 90 minutes, he answered questions on such varying subjects as tackling extremism, Brexit, freedom of movement, the triple lock, opportunities for young people and the fight against climate change.
He was particularly strong on tackling inter-generational unfairness and I was heartened to see him continue to keep social justice and reducing inequality as top priorities.
He talked about the need to curb some of the privileges pensioners get – such as wealthier people over state pension age who are still earning not paying National Insurance. He said it was important to maintain the triple lock, though, because we don’t want to go back to the days when so many pensioners lived in poverty.
I was really pleased to meet so many people who had recently joined the party – some who had specifically joined because Vince was leader.
Watch most of it in the next two video clips. Don’t be put off by the sound interference at the beginning of the first one. It sorts itself out.
Earlier in the day, Vince had gone to the Dynamic Earth attraction with Willie Rennie and Alex Cole-Hamilton.
.@vincecable joins @willie_rennie and @agcolehamilton at Dynamic Earth, ahead of tonight's Q&A in Edinburgh - tune in live on Facebook at 7! pic.twitter.com/4KyZ8pSiCw
— Liberal Democrats (@LibDems) August 18, 2017
* 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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6 Comments
Great to see a bit of what’s going on during Vince’s tour, and to hear what people are interested in.
I like what Vince has to say about better use of social media, and things like Facebook live, but if this doesn’t sound too negative, please ensure that minimum production values are met. There was a bit of feedback from the mics during some of the questions, and filming in landscape is much easier on the eye. It might seem petty, but slight changes can make a big difference in total views. Hopefully we’ll get plenty of practice so it all becomes second nature, and take up the offer of help from one of the young members at the session.
Sadly the sound quality is so poor (and I did persevere) that I cannot hear. Am deaf anyway so always difficult but this is very poor. I hope everyone could share thoughts and ideas.
Jackie
Very good opening speech by Vince, delivered without notes. At one point whilst answering questions he said that he’d altered his view on the role of government towards the economy as a result of the Financial Crash, his time spent in government, and the failure of free market solutions: he had become “less liberal” and “more interventionist”.
@Yeovil Yokel
It depends what he meant by “liberal” in this context. Liberalism does not mean an absence of laws – that is anarchy. Perhaps it was a criticism of deregulated banking. A sentiment I would agree with.
The context in the speech was clear that he was talking explicitly about the need for better regulation of the banking industry. Of course, this lesson could apply to other sectors, and I’m thinking especially of things like housing, which is already regulated, but where there is a lot of pressure from developers to ‘reduce red tape’.
It was good he said so, and not just because he’s right, but also because it is a good example of learning from experience, which too many politicians refuse to consider as an option.
an impressive performance, admittedly before a home crowd. Learnt that the treasury insists on high interest rates. Are tuition fees and other loans to make money or to progress various values and policies. Certainly motivates me to come to Bournemouth.