All posts tagged: Lib

Humanists UK success at Lib Dem conference

Humanists UK success at Lib Dem conference

Published by skeptic

  Humanists UK enjoyed great success this week at the Liberal Democrats Party Conference where we heard from MPs of the critical importance voters placed on humanist issues during the election campaign. Humanists UK  attends all the major party conferences to meet with parliamentarians, to advocate for humanist issues, and to engage with our party-political members and supporters. We were also at the Green Conference and will be at the Labour and Conservative Conferences. We were delighted to have 20 MPs drop by our stand to discuss key campaigns like humanist marriages, assisted dying, and education, and found widespread support for our positions, including many key frontbenchers. One MP told us ‘We heard humanist issues much more on the doorstep this election, especially issues to do with schools’, showing the increasing significance of our work.   A packed-out speaker event on the need for a secular state, chaired by Humanist and Secularist Liberal Democrats’ (HSLD) Jenny Wilkinson, was addressed by our Chief Executive Andrew Copson as well as by the newly elected Tom Gordon MP …

Ex-Tory MP Rory Stewart: ‘I guess my hand will float over Labour, but will probably come down on Lib Dems or the Greens’ | Rory Stewart

Ex-Tory MP Rory Stewart: ‘I guess my hand will float over Labour, but will probably come down on Lib Dems or the Greens’ | Rory Stewart

Published by skeptic

Rory Stewart, 51, has been a diplomat, an academic, an adventurer and a politician. He served as a deputy governor in Iraq following the 2003 invasion. Between 2010 and 2019 he was a Conservative MP for Penrith and the Border, resigning having lost a leadership election to Boris Johnson. His podcast with Alastair Campbell, The Rest Is Politics, boasts more than 200,000 regular listeners; his book, Politics on the Edge, now out in paperback, reflects on his decade in government. Do you think we’re seeing the death of the Tory party?I think there are two possibilities. One is it experiences defeat, it recognises it’s got itself on the wrong path and it moves back to the centre, which is what happened, broadly speaking, under David Cameron. The other is that it experiences defeat as confirmation that it needs to lean ever further to the right – the temptation of the Suella Braverman faction or even out to the fringes of Nigel Farage. In your book, you recall how Liz Truss suggested your fatal flaw was …

Lib Dems are right to put arts education at the heart of their plans for culture

Lib Dems are right to put arts education at the heart of their plans for culture

Published by skeptic

With the cost of living, taxation and, in the last few days, D-day commemoration, commanding the lion’s share of campaign attention, little has yet been paid to the parties’ plans for the arts and cultural sector this general election. Pleasingly, however, the Liberal Democrat (Lib Dems) manifesto (the first to launch) devotes one of its 22 sections to “culture, media and sport”. Details are somewhat vague at this early stage, but one thing they make a commitment to is maintaining free access to museums and galleries and to lottery funding for sports and the arts. While these commitments are welcome, they do not go far enough, especially outside the institution-rich capital. Cash-strapped councils such as Birmingham are having to reduce or cut entirely their spending on arts, and spending on cultural institutions by local authorities has nearly halved during the last 12 years. This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry – and celebrate the wins, too. The manifesto also looks …

Lib Dems to promise £1.5bn reform of carer’s allowance including debt amnesty | Carers

Lib Dems to promise £1.5bn reform of carer’s allowance including debt amnesty | Carers

Published by skeptic

The Liberal Democrats will commit to a £1.5bn overhaul of carer’s allowance, including a £20-a-week boost for more than 1 million people who devote their lives to looking after frail, ill and disabled loved ones, in their general election manifesto. An ongoing Guardian investigation has revealed that tens of thousands of unpaid carers have been forced by the government to pay back huge sums – and in some cases have faced criminal prosecution – for minor and accidental breaches of carer’s allowance earnings rules. Proposed reforms to be unveiled on Monday by the Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey, will include a write-off of £250m of carer’s allowance overpayment debts run up by more than 100,000 carers, and measures to help carers earn more through part-time paid work. Davey, who is a carer himself, said the proposals were designed to give family carers a fair deal and put a stop to what he called the “shameful hounding” of unpaid carers by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The Guardian’s revelations about the scale and human …

Lib Dems gain most council seats in last five years, party’s data shows | Liberal Democrats

Lib Dems gain most council seats in last five years, party’s data shows | Liberal Democrats

Published by skeptic

The Lib Dems have added more council seats than any other party over the last parliament, gaining more than 750 in the last five years, largely in the south-west and south of England. As Ed Davey’s party won more seats than the Conservatives in the local elections last week, the Lib Dems said Tories would be “looking over their shoulder terrified” as the general election approached. Data analysis by the party shows that the Lib Dems have gained 768 seats, Labour 545 and the Greens 480, while the Conservatives have lost 1,783. The scale of the Conservative losses, with many councils falling to no overall control or Labour and Lib Dem coalitions since 2019, is likely to add to nerves among Tory MPs worried about keeping their seats at the general election. The Lib Dems have taken control of councils in Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Somerset and Surrey. The party could be responsible for toppling some of the biggest Conservative names at the general election, such as the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, and the housing secretary, …

The Lib Dems have lost their way – even some members admit it | Liberal Democrats

The Lib Dems have lost their way – even some members admit it | Liberal Democrats

Published by skeptic

“Why don’t we take the UK’s third-biggest party seriously?” says the headline in your print edition on Martin Kettle’s article (Frank Field saw benefit in the Lib Dems. In this election year, Labour would be wise to do the same, 25 April). It is a question that many of us within the party have been attempting to answer for a long time. Even if most of the electorate does not interest itself in the depths of political philosophy, a party has to have a rigorous ideological position that gives it a vision of the kind of society it campaigns for. Only this encourages concerned individuals to commit themselves to working sacrificially for years in the political jungle. Despite the existence of a Liberal-shaped gap in British society today, in which, as Fraser Nelson of the Spectator stated recently, we have “two conservative parties”, the Liberal Democrats have failed to express and present the historical Liberal position as a non-statist radical party. Its last significant document setting out its values and philosophy was in 2002. Today …

Lib Dem MP Claims Tories Back Rwanda Deportation For 1 Reason

Lib Dem MP Claims Tories Back Rwanda Deportation For 1 Reason

Published by Sam

A Liberal Democrat MP laid into the Rwanda plan on BBC Question Time, saying the government just wanted it to boost them in the opinion polls. Tim Farron, the former leader of his party, described the Conservatives’ ongoing efforts to deport asylum seekers to the African country as a “complete and total distraction” last night. Alluding to the £220 million already spent on the scheme, Farron said: “The amount of money the government has wasted on the Rwanda plan so far – so far – is the equivalent to 5.7 million GP appointments.” He added that the government is treating some of the “most desperate people in the world as political footballs”. “The Conservative party knows the reason it is using the Rwanda plan is that they think it might shift them a couple of decimal points in the opinion polls,” Farron claimed. The Tories have been doing exceptionally badly in the opinion polls recently, and reached a record low earlier this month. Farron continued: “Ask yourself what you would want to happen to you …

Lib Dems Want To Be The Least “Bonkers” Opposition To A Labour Government

Lib Dems Want To Be The Least “Bonkers” Opposition To A Labour Government

Published by skeptic

Leader Ed Davey delivered his speech to conference on Sunday (John Russell) 7 min read1 hr Liberal Democrat MPs are considering how they can provide “credible opposition” to a potential future Labour government, by increasing their presence in the House of Commons and encouraging “bolder” legislative changes. While the Lib Dems are not expected to win enough seats to form a government at the next general election, which must be called before the end of this year, it is widely expected that they will see a healthy boost to the number of seats they hold in the House of Commons. How they could use their role as a more significant opposition party to shape legislation is therefore increasingly in the spotlight.  To achieve that though, the party machine must remain focused on its mission to ensure Lib Dem can win as many seats as possible, particularly in the hope of overtaking the SNP to become the third largest party. One Lib Dem MP told PoliticsHome this would be crucial to their ability to make legislative changes and hold the government to …

Low-profile Lib Dems are flatlining in the polls – but don’t write them off | Liberal Democrats

Low-profile Lib Dems are flatlining in the polls – but don’t write them off | Liberal Democrats

Published by skeptic

The Liberal Democrats gathered this weekend for their final spring conference before the general election. You may be forgiven for not knowing this. The fourth-largest party barely feature in current political discussions lately, and are flatlining in the polls even as the government sinks ever lower. Only one in three voters has an opinion on party leader Ed Davey, and even fewer have much idea what his party offers. The costs of Brexit are mounting up, yet its most steadfast opponents are struggling. Instead, it is the most pro-Brexit party of all, Reform UK, which is making the political weather: making headlines, surging in the polls, and last week winning their first MP following the defection of Lee Anderson. It is tempting to write the Lib Dems off as irrelevant to the great Tory-Labour contest to come. Resist the temptation. National polling and national coverage are the wrong metrics to judge a party whose electoral fate turns on local organisation and local support. The Lib Dem picture is much rosier viewed through this lens. Their disappointing …