Lib Dems: Govt failing to stop spread of coronavirus in prisons Responding to the latest Government statistics on COVID-19 in Prison and Probation Service in England and Wales, Liberal Democrat Justice Spokesperson Daisy Cooper said: With more than 500 prisoners testing positive for coronavirus, but only 175 being released early, it is clear the Government aren't taking seriously the spread of the virus in our prisons. They have completely failed to end overcrowding in prisons, allowing them to become a crucible for the disease. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Liberal Democrats have been clear it is impossible to ...
Philippe Sands sees the British government still defending our colonial legacy: "Five decades on, many former residents of the Chagos Archipelago still wished to go home, supported by Mauritius, many other African countries, and much of the world besides. This was one of the purposes of the resolution before the General Assembly—and it was, of course, precisely such a matter as the United Nations was created to address." "If you use a piece of data as a target or as a box that must be ticked, then the data will become inaccurate. That's Goodhart's Law." David Boyle introduces us to ...
We met again on Wednesday 24th June, with a focus this time on motions we plan to submit for the virtual autumn conference. As previously reported, for a combination of reasons we don't have any full policy papers this year, but are putting forward stand-alone motions in a few areas we'd like to raise. It is of course up to the Federal Conference Committee which, if any, of these they select for debate, and if they do then of course they will be published in the normal way in due course, so I'm not going to lay out here their ...
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash The High Court has granted the children's rights charity Article 39 a judicial review of the Department for Education's removal and dilution of legal protections for children in care. These changes were announced overnight in April with the Covid-19 pandemic given as the reason, yet DfE has been trying to bring in some of these changes for several years. Given the seriousness of the changes and the vulnerability of the affected children, Article 39 asked the court for the case to be expedited. This was also agreed by the court, and the hearing will ...
Welcome to the latest episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts, featuring a special interview with Tim Farron and including his advice for the next party leader as well as tips on what members should ask in hustings meetings.
This is the second of a series of three posts. The first part can be read here. The following is a critique of the defence policy outlined in the Liberal Democrat Manifesto published for the 2019 General Election and presumably still extant at time of writing (June 2020). Manifesto commitments are reproduced verbatim followed by my commentary. Page 91: A Secure Defence in the 21st Century (continued) Maintain a minimum nuclear deterrent. We propose continuing with the Dreadnought programme, the submarine-based replacement for Vanguard, but procuring three boats instead of four, and moving to a medium-readiness responsive posture. This would ...
Fri 26th
18:30
King Street closure order has come into force - it's closed to vehicles every Friday and Saturday fo...
The closure of King Street between 10am and 3pm today and tomorrow is a temporary measure. Initially it will be in place for 18 months but it can be cancelled at any point if it is causing disruption. The closure is to promote social distancing on one of our busiest streets for traffic and pedestrians. In ordinary times, pedestrians squeeze along the narrow pavements with their shopping bags and pushchairs. They frequently spill out into the road, as do the drivers of mobility scooters, where they compete with cars and vans for use of the narrow street. This congestion has ...
Second paragraph of third chapter:Decades after the deaths of Mao and Chiang, it is possible not only to look at those two major figures with some perspective, but also to pay more attention to the context around them. There is an alternative to regarding the early 20th century as a clash of the two Chinese giants: instead we can treat the period from the establishment of Chiang's Nationalist government in 1928 to the present day as one long modernizing project by two parties that agreed as well as disagreed. Both the Nationalists and the Communists wished to establish a strong ...
My grandmother was a Hooker. I'm afraid she never really understood why we all fell about laughing when she told us that. As it happens there is a distant family connection with the slang term for a prostitute – but more of that later. Which reminds me of something one of my sons told me this week. When he was young he learned the words prostitute and protestant at around the same time, and managed to confuse them for a while. It's a good thing he worked out the difference before he went to live in Northern Ireland. To return ...
Fri 26th
16:05
Ros in the Lords - Abortion (Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Regulations 2020, Motion to Approve
Never let it be said that you don't learn anything here at Liberal Bureaucracy. It would be fair to say that a piece of Northern Ireland specific legislation might not normally draw an intervention from Ros, but sometimes context is important. Ros sits on the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, a deeply obscure Parliamentary Committee which consists of members of both Houses, and its role is to consider statutory instruments made in exercise of powers granted by Act of Parliament. One of the key aspects is to decide whether or not a Statutory Instrument is ultra vires or not. This ...
We're recruiting for some important volunteer posts in the Liberal Democrats: members of our Federal Appeals Panel.
In 2007/8 we suffered the financial crisis with the consequent bail outs for the finance industry and restriction/depression for the majority. In 2020 we suffer the Covid-19 plague. The response to the first involved the rescue of the finance industry from public funds and the removal of wealth from much of the rest of society. Those responsible suffered no physical or financial hardship as a consequence. The response to the second has resulted in the deaths among those who are working to protect, care for and support us in the midst of this plague. The pay or monetary value of ...
You can't rule it out pic.twitter.com/IsdV2WN3zX — Josh Berry (@JoshBerryComedy) June 25, 2020
US-Russian talks started this week in Vienna between US and Russia to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) which expires in February. Negotiators face massive obstacles – for lots of reasons. For a start, Presidents Trump and Putin are fond of their nuclear toys. They have both effectively scrapped the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty and announced significant investment in new nuclear weapons. Both men are keen on the more "bang for the buck" theory of nuclear war. The other big reason the talks are headed for failure is the Trump Administration's insistence that China is included in the ...
Thu, 12:56: RT @amandalitman: In NY's primary, I didn't vote for Biden. (I believe in voting your ❤️ in primaries, even in long-over races.) But I want... Thu, 16:05: The Republican Choice https://t.co/f4wgWNdHK4 Fascinating on @FiveThirtyEight about how the Republican Party became so white. Thu, 16:53: RT @irish_news: Former QUB professor Marcus Wheeler with gift for languages will be remembered as 'dedicated educator' https://t.co/vkSgOsF... Thu, 17:04: I'm watching. https://t.co/D6hbxMXZN7 Thu, 17:06: Has Secretary of State Pompeo looked at John Bolton's new book? Does he plan to read it, if he has not already?... https://t.co/9pbhN5GYsP Thu, 17:11: Britain's diversity is much ...
It seems like a very long time ago that I was asked, very nicely, if I would act as the Returning Officer to the LGBT+ Liberal Democrats. And, indeed, I suppose it was - I've been in post now for nine months without actually delivering a result. It's a long story... There had been some problems. A mass exodus of the leadership over the Philip Lee affair had created something of a leadership vacuum, and the membership list had become a little unstable due to issues about renewal. Nothing that time and a little bureaucracy couldn't fix, but somebody rather ...
Just how much political capital does Boris Johnson have left? He has already used up significant goodwill within his own party in defending Dominic Cummings, now he has put his weight behind his housing secretary, despite the many questions over how Robert Jenrick has been interacting with key Tory donors. It is one thing to be loyal to one's friends, but surely the Prime Minister does not need these distractions at such a crucial time. Jenrick is facing claims that he bent over backwards to assist Richard Desmond, by rushing through a £1bn property development against advice, so that the ...
Electric cars are a phenomenon. According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, sales of electric and Plug-in Hybrids (PHEVs) increased by 131.8% and 13.8% respectively in the year to May 2020. This figure is expected to keep on going as infrastructure improves and battery technology becomes easier to manufacture, more efficient, and, most importantly, cheaper. Layla Moran MP also wrote to Rishi Sunak this week calling for electric vehicles to be exempted from VAT, which would help bring down prices and increase sales even further. This is surely great news: no or little (in the case of PHEVs) ...
Sefton Council Logo The Liverpool Echo has the article on its website – see link below:- Bootle Town Hall For as long as anyone involved in local politics can probably remember local authorities have shouted from the roof tops at every government of every colour that they don't understand them and the pressures they are under. Usually and indeed during every one of my 15 years as a Sefton Borough councillor the underlying cause of this shouting was associated with the ever spiraling cost of adult social care and children in care. This time the causes are very different ...
Fri 26th
08:41
Why the idea that Labour cannot win a majority at the next general election is the biggest fallacy i...
One of the trends from the last five years of politics is that a truism gets established amongst the cognoscenti, which then spreads to the next level of those interested enough in politics to pay attention to at least some of its subtleties – and then the truism gets demolished by reality. "Corbyn could never become Labour leader". "Leave could never win the EU referendum". "Trump could never win the presidency". "Theresa May will end up with a massive majority after the 2017 general election". I could go on, but you get the point. Each time one of these truisms ...
The Peer Support Line from Making Recovery Real in Dundee is a great resource 📞 The phone line is managed by peer support workers and volunteers, who use their own lived experience of mental health, to provide a friendly voice to others struggling with theirs, during current challenging circumstances. Anyone is welcome to call or text - find contact details below :
