Britain has spent the last few decades running a national experiment. We have taken essential infrastructure that behaves like a monopoly, we put it in private hands, and we hope competition somehow emerges. I can't blame the utilities executives. They got lucky and landed the utilities in the 80s, like some awful game of Monopoly we still pay for. No risk and all reward, what a deal! The results are familiar to anyone who has navigated unreliable rail services or warned their children of the dangers of swimming in the sea that was safe in their childhood. When a market ...
When I welcomed a delegation of British Liberal Democrats to Jerusalem and Ramallah last week, led by Gavin Stollar OBE and the Party's Foreign Affairs lead, Calum Miller MP, I was reminded that politics, at its best, is not a transaction but a relationship. It is built on trust, curiosity and, above all, friendship. In a region where suspicion is often the default setting, the simple act of sitting together – listening, disagreeing respectfully, and breaking bread – can itself feel radical. Our conversations were frank. They were searching. They were, at moments, uncomfortable. And they were deeply encouraging. I ...
Reviewing Max Adams's The Mercian Chronicles: King Offa and the Birth of the Anglo-Saxon State AD 630-918 for the London Review of Books, Tom Shippey wrote of the difficulty in recovering the history of the kingdom of Mercia: Adams's title is deliberately ironic. There are no 'Mercian Chronicles', the fact of which has caused historians headaches for centuries. For Northumbria we have Bede's History of the English Church and People, written in Jarrow and finished in 731. For Wessex we have The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, first compiled under the aegis of King Ælfred in the 890s, but including much earlier information ...
The latest edition of my email newsletter about work in Parliament, A Lord's Eye View, is out and you can also read it in full below. But if you'd like to get future editions emailed direct to you as soon as they are published, sign up now: Another update from Parliament, sooner than expected as there was a welcome bit of news last night as the House of Commons debated the Representation of the People Bill. Electoral Commission's independence to be fully restored When a Conservative government curbed the Electoral Commission's independence by taking on the power to set a ...
Roz Savage is right that "left" and "right" are poor maps for modern politics. Her alternative axes, especially "power hoarded vs power shared", are a better guide to what voters feel in daily life. But there is a risk in the slogan "Not left. Not right. Liberal." It is excellent as outward-facing messaging; it is incomplete as a description of our party. The Liberal Democrats are not a single ideological bloc. We are a coalition, intentionally, and that breadth is a feature, not a bug. We were formed through a fusion of liberal and social democratic traditions, and our constitution ...
Taylor Lorenz argues that there is little evidence that social media is driving a mental health crisis among young people and a banning them from it would effect us all: "Removing anonymity from the web, which will inevitably happen when tech companies are required to identify and ban children, allows for easier government tracking and censorship of journalists, activists and whistleblowers, who rely on online anonymity." Opponents of traffic-reduction measures in cities sometimes claim that such policies discriminate against people with disabilities because they need cars to get about. In reality, Julia Métraux finds, walkable communities are good for them ...
Nation Cymru reports on new research that has revealed mounting pressure on Wales' voluntary sector, with rising demand, worsening finances and growing reliance on reserves threatening the long-term sustainability of charities and community organisations. They says that the latest Baromedr Cymru findings from the Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA) paint what the organisation describes as a stark picture of the challenges facing the sector: The survey, carried out in November 2025 and February 2026, gathered responses from more than 200 voluntary organisations across Wales. Generating income remains the single biggest concern, cited by 81% of respondents in the most ...
Sunniside History Society was given the photographic collection of Francis Newman after he passed away. In the collection are a large number of slides taken of the area, along with a slide projector. On Wednesday I will be chairing the next meeting of the Society and we will randomly select a cartridge of slides and show them to the meeting. We have no idea what is in the slides but the aim
Today was a mopping up day! In other words, all those streets that somehow got missed off the delivery patches were delivered today in Marley Hill and Sunniside. Tomorrow I have 2 patches of letters to deliver in Whickham. And once they are out of the way, I start work on our next Focus newsletter.
The judges were heard grumbling about "clickbait; nevertheless, yahoo news! wins our Headline of the Day Award.
We had a good turnout for the Gateshead Lib Dem action day on Sunday. And yet again, it was held in Bridges ward. The final headcount of helpers was 15. The aim of the day was to deliver as many of the letters we had produced for the ward as possible - we shifted half of them (we started the day with 2000). A bit of mopping up also ensured the remaining Focus newsletters were delivered as
This photo of our street surgery in Sunniside on Saturday arrived a bit too late for inclusion in an earlier post but here it is now, in all its splendour! Our next surgery is Saturday 28th March 2026 at Whickham Library.
Last week, the agenda for Lib Dem spring conference arrived. Conference is again being held in York, a favourite for the March gathering. Back in 2012 it was held at the Sage, Gateshead, which made attendance much easier. York however is only an hour on the train. I've had a quick look through the agenda. Most of what interests me is the training and there are plenty of sessions from which to
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Mathew on Monday: What a Liberal Response to the Middle East crisis actually looks like
This morning I appeared on BBC Radio Leicester about the escalating situation in the Middle East. As ever with the region the headlines move fast, the rhetoric moves faster, and the human cost is felt fastest of all. For me, this is not abstract. I have family members who live in Dubai. When tensions rise across the region, when missiles are launched, when airspace closes, and you read of security warnings flashing up on phones, it stops being a matter of general interest and becomes something deeply personal. You find yourself not as a commentator, but as a relative. You ...
What have Putin, Stalin, Donald Trump, Adolf Hitler, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ayatollah Khomeini got in common? Race? No. Religion? No. Intelligence levels? No. Gender? Yes, they are all men. This list could have gone on and on because too many leaders in history and still in our present time are men which means that not enough of them are women! As 52% of the population of the UK are female you might this that this blog is a shameless attempt to procure their vote for the Lib Dems but that would not be the case. I say this, and have been ...
Immediate domestic reactions to American bombing of Iran have displayed how divided British political parties are on Israel, Iran and US approaches to Middle Eastern politics. Priti Patel as Conservative shadow foreign secretary was firm in her support. Nigel Farage was even more enthusiastic and uncritical. Liberal Democrat MPs have been critical, and insistent that the UK should not become directly involved. Labour has been cautious, contributing only to 'defensive' operations against Iranian responses. The Greens have condemned the American attack. The old idea that politicians of all parties should stand shoulder to shoulder when international crisis threatens has long ...
Back in the Brexit years, the European Research Group of hard-line Conservative MPs christened themselves the "Spartans". Perhaps they were drawn to the image of an elite warrior brotherhood, standing firm against overwhelming odds. Or perhaps they admired Sparta's reputation as one of the most austere and uncompromising societies of the ancient world. Either way, they might have profited from a closer look at how Sparta's story actually ended — and why. Sparta guarded its citizenship with exceptional rigidity. Full political membership was reserved for those born to two Spartan parents, and even then only after passing through an unforgiving ...
A reminder of the importance of ensuring that political leaflets have imprints on them: Reform had to go to court (at their own expense) to secure legal relief for a missing imprint on some of their literature in the Gorton and Denton Parliamentary by-election: I've been in the Rolls Building this morning, where Justice Christopher Butcher granted an application on Goodwin's behalf to formally exempt him from any actionThe judge said he was satisfied that the evidence met these requirements because it "arose from inadvertence" via an error by printers — Lizzie Dearden (@lizziedearden.bsky.social) 2026-02-25T12:28:28.316Z
The latest edition of my email newsletter about work in Parliament, A Lord's Eye View, is out and you can also read it in full below. But if you'd like to get future editions emailed direct to you as soon as they are published, sign up now: It's back to slowness this week; that is, why so much secondary legislation moves so slowly. There is a new example of this slowness that is particularly powerful because even the normal critiques of policy-making in Whitehall do not explain it. A mystery over the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute A very ...
There is so much talk these days about integration, multiculturalism and ways in which people settle in after moving to a different area, country or a continent. The narrative, driven by a number of politicians and media outlets, is most of the time negative and selective. It is not created for a reasonable debate, rational discussion, but rather to steer division and hatred. Now...I am saying that the multiculturalism doesn't bring social, cultural and economic challenges. I am also not saying that I naively believe in open borders and building "happy-clapping" society. I am talking about finding a balance, pragmatic ...
It's clear Keir Starmer never believed in much of what was contained in these pledges. They were written for him so he would appeal to Labour members in the party's last leadership election. More and more, I favour Neal Lawson's account of how we ended up with a prime minister who possesses so few of the qualities you look for in a political leader:Wes Streeting was always meant to be their Labour prime minister. The plan, hatched by a tiny clique of right-wing faction fighters, was this: find a candidate on whom they could fake a continuation Corbynism project to ...
Time for another London walk with John Rogers: A walk from Acton Town Tube Station down Bollo Lane looking at the changes taking place there, then across Turnham Green where I talk about the Civil War battle that took place there in 1642. The video ends at the beautiful Chiswick House Park. This walking tour explores West London history, urban change, and hidden landscapes, moving through Acton, Bollo Lane, Turnham Green, and Chiswick. Along the way it touches on London regeneration, psychogeography, Civil War history, grand houses, and the last industrial London. Most signs of the Acton Town to South ...
From time to time on this site there has been reference to the limited usefulness of left and right in terms of describing political parties and the boundaries between them – including Roz Savage's recent piece. In a less fluid political landscape I can remember the Huddersfield West Liberal MP wrestling with this in the 1960s. One of the curious features of left/right models is that parties find it easier to use the tags to describe their opponents than to define themselves. So what alternative labels are there? Are progressive and conservative any use? The former tends to be more ...
The Bloomberg site reports that Reform Party Leader Nigel Farage has accused the Greens of winning the Gorton by-election by "cheating," after independent observers reported several instances of the banned practice of family voting. Farage wrote on Twitter after the count that"This election was a victory for sectarian voting and cheating." Farage later issued a statement saying he'd reported the matter to the Electoral Commission and the police: "What was witnessed yesterday is deeply concerning and raises serious questions about the integrity of the democratic process in predominantly Muslim areas," he said. Farage's remarks appear to follow the same playbook ...