00Are they up to the job? - Liberator questions leadership contenders 00Liberal gains across Europe - David Grace 00Tiananmen comes to Khartoum - Rebecca Tinsley

Issue 396 - June 2019 £ 4 Issue 396 June 2019 SUBSCRIBE! CONTENTS Liberator magazine is published six/seven times per year. Subscribe for only £25 (£30 overseas) per year. Commentary...... 3 You can subscribe or renew online using PayPal at Radical Bulletin...... 4..5 our website: www.liberator.org.uk ARE THEY UP TO THE JOB THEN?...... 6..10 Or send a cheque (UK banks only), payable to Liberator has sent a questionnaire to Liberal Democrat leadership “Liberator Publications”, together with your name contenders ever since 1988 and full postal address, to: IN - OUT - PENDING...... 11 Liberator Publications Whoever becomes the next Liberal Democrat leader, they can look Flat 1, 24 Alexandra Grove forward to an overflowing in-tray. Sarah Green takes a look inside N4 2LF WHAT THE BBC WON’T TELL YOU...... 12..13 England Liberals saw a renaissance in the elections, despite the media emphasis on the populist right, says David Grace THE LIBERATOR COLLECTIVE IDENTITY POLITICS BEYOND ...... 14..15 Jonathan Calder, Richard Clein, Howard Cohen, Everyone at York was given a copy of ’s pamphlet, which Gareth Epps, Catherine Furlong, David Grace, raises issues of realignment, political identity and the B word. Susan Sarah Green, Peter Johnson, Wendy Kyrle-Pope, Simmonds discusses why Tim McNally, George Potter, Stewart Rayment, Kiron Reid, Harriet Sherlock, Mark Smulian, TIANANMEN AND DARFUR William Tranby, Claire Wiggins, Nick Winch COME TO KHARTOUM...... 16..17 The bloody crackdown on democracy activists in Sudan was Liberator (ISSN 0307-4315) is printed by encouraged by other Arab dictatorships as a waring to their own Lithosphere people, says Rebecca Tinsley Studio 1, 146 Seven Sisters Road, LONDON N7 7PL “WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?”...... 18..19 LIBERATOR Losing contact with ordinary voters cost Labor an Australian election everyone expected it to win. Steve Yolland reports M was founded in 1970 and is produced by a IT’S MORE THAN MONEY...... 20 voluntary editorial collective. Inequality is not just financial, liberals should tackle unequal power too, says Oliver Craven M acts as a forum for debate among radical liberals in all parties and none NO CASH FOR SCHOOLS...... 21 A funding crisis has emerged in education. John Bryant suggests some ways to solve it M welcomes written contributions on relevant topics, up to 1800 words POOR PERFORMANCE...... 22..23 Have the Liberal Democrats got anything to say to people in poverty, We reserve the right to shorten, alter or omit any and would they listen anyway? Geoff Payne sets the scene for this material. year’s Social Liberal Forum conference DATA PROTECTION IT WASN’T JUST BREXIT THAT WON IT...... 24 Howard Sykes looks at how local election success set up the European We hold subscribers’ names and election results, and even got some national help addresses to fulfil our contract to provide LETTERS...... 25..26 copies of Liberator, and to contact them about their subscription. We do REVIEWS...... 27 not pass details to third parties - unless required by law - with the exception Lord Bonkers’ Diary...... 28 of our distributor, who deletes the files used for address labels after use. To alter or remove your details or discuss any Cover: Christy Lawrance enquiry please contact: [email protected]

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Blog: http://liberator-magazine.blogspot.co.uk Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/ groups/6806343091 ROUND OBJECTS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT Did the Lib Dems really, as some claim, toy with Last summer something close to panic consumed using the f-word before settling on Bollocks to the party leadership about what was to become Brexit as the euro election campaign slogan? Change UK. It was well-known that Chuka The choice paid off. As a simple and direct slogan it Unmunna was running an informal whipping was unimprovable and unmistakable, and a welcome operation among dissident Labour MPs and that contrast to past general election campaigns that have this was probably the precursor to a new party. tried to emphasise complicated ideas based on the It was also feared that this novelty would seduce party’s copious repository of unread policy documents. hordes of Lib Dem voters and most of the party’s While this might be hard to replicate in a general major donors. This drove some of the more foolish election (‘Bollocks to not putting a penny on income ideas about supporters and non-MP leaders tax for the NHS’ doesn’t have the same ring) the idea rejected at York (Liberator 395). of having a few clear messages and putting them with Indeed, a few people who should have known better conviction can be. called for the party to cave into the TIGgers. Bollocks to Brexit also showed the party being They now look extremely silly, while those who were confident about saying something controversial and merely worried look to have unnecessarily lacked sticking to it, rather than listening to those who think confidence. it should never say anything definite in case somebody, Change UK managed to launch with no policy or somewhere, is offended. objectives beyond opposition to Brexit, no organisation Although the Lib Dems did almost ‘win everywhere’ and with a stance towards the Lib Dems of arrogant in the euro elections because of the proportional disdain - “step aside amateurs, some real politicians system, the thinking behind the Bollocks to Brexit are here” rather as elements of the SDP did long ago. campaign was quite different from those where the The new party’s European election result was party has been afraid to take a clear position in case it humiliating, and it soon after collapsed in the doesn’t ‘win everywhere’. remarkable sight of a party with no ideology still Repeating this clear approach in a general election managing to have a split. - on Brexit or anything else - will almost certainly Ex-leader has indicated that she favoured alienate someone, but so what? tactical voting for the Lib Dems and she and her If the party is to establish the core vote of reliable associates may be on their way into the party, or some support that it needs it cannot do that by exploiting sort of deal with it. transitory local grievances or seeking to neither offend If so, any such deals should be local decisions, not a nor inspire. That approach, as has been seen, leaves national carve-up of the kind done with the SDP. the party with a paltry vote on which it can depend The five remaining in Change UK are by no stretch and means it has to put in huge amounts of person- of the imagination liberals and sit for seats where it power to win almost every vote afresh at each election. scarcely matters to their prospects whether or not the So if the recent campaign has alienated Brexit Lib Dems oppose them, and so may soon clear off to supporters that should be cause for neither surprise lobbying companies and think tanks. nor concern. Let them be alienated from the Lib Dems, Only one useful purpose possibly remains to the for the same reason that liberals are alienated from rump of Change UK - as a receptacle for Tories who the Brexit party and Ukip. cannot stomach a hard-Brexit leader, should one be A more pressing concern is how to hang on to the elected, but who do not wish to join the Lib Dems. support gained in the euro election. Some of it of ’s defection to the Lib Dems is course depended on the strange circumstances of the welcome but he’ll have to work to prove he is any kind election and cannot be retained - it would be rather of liberal - and his vile suggestion that national service surprising if Michael Heseltine and Alistair Campbell should be restored must go. were out canvassing together for the Lib Dems - but The confidence displayed in Bollocks to Brexit is a much could. happy contrast to the panicked lack of confidence the Those who have voted Lib Dem once are more likely leadership displayed last summer towards an incipient to do so again than those who never have, and those rival, and since May’s elections the party is starting to who see the Lib Dems talking straight about their believe in itself again. concerns are even more likely to. Which is why, if the disaster of Brexit does happen, there should be no hand-wringing about ‘moving on’. The Lib Dems have shown what having confidence in what they believe can achieve, and should then become the party of ‘back in’. M 3 LETTER OF THE LAW hinted that while it thought what the Lib Dems If a public election were counted on a different planned for diversity was praiseworthy it was pushing basis to that stated in advance there would be at the boundaries of legality. understandable outrage that voters had been Less than a week before voting closed - but quite misled. some time after it opened - legal advice was finally This though happened in the voting for Lib Dem secured. candidates on the European election lists, following This not only ruled that zipping was not permitted a legal challenge to the diversity criteria due to be when the only MEP was female anyway, but that employed. the other diversity criteria were also barred on the The problem goes back to a joint meeting at the grounds they were in potential conflict, for example spring conference in York of the candidates and that a disabled woman might be moved down to make campaigns committees, which decided to use ‘zipping’ way for a BME man. as in previous elections, whereby men and women Faced with this it was decided the votes would have alternate down the lists and different regions have a to be counted ‘neat’ with no diversity criteria applied. man or woman in first place. The result was if anything more diverse than it To this were added various criteria about which would have been with the criteria, with the only white places should go to BME, LGBT or disabled men heading lists being three former MEPs. Women candidates. headed five lists in England and a BME man one, and No legal advice appears to have been sought at this the other higher places showed diversity. stage as it did not occur to anyone that there was a There was then a legal challenge from Dinesh problem. Dhamija, the second place candidate in London, People were invited to stand, and indeed vote, on the who argued unsuccessfully in the High Court for an basis that these diversity criteria were in place. injunction to put him in first place, which he said was Thus many people must have stood, or not stood, where he would have been had the planned criteria on their assessment of whether or not the diversity been applied. criteria would help them. The judge instead left Irina Von Wiese in first place, But there was a legal problem, which arose from and said the party’s original policy on the diversity Catherine Bearder being the only incumbent Lib Dem criteria would have been unlawful as it risked MEP. favouring some candidates with one set of protected Since 100% of its MEPs were female, the party could characteristics at the expense of those with others. not legally use measures to favour women since they Responsibility for this fiasco is being batted between were not under-represented and equalities legislation the federal and English levels of the party, since allows this only where under-representation is current, Scotland and Wales made their own arrangements. not where people fear it might happen in future. As with much else, disputes between the federal and Party president is understood to have English levels can be made to both go on forever and pointed to a European Parliament decision that become incomprehensible. suggested zipping could still be used, but this turned The federal party has insisted the decision over out to be only an observation from a committee, not a candidate selections were an English matter. law. Members of the English executive say they were told Then the legal challenges started. Some noticed the they had no power over the matter with the decisions criteria had been set so that no white man - of any dating from the federal committees’ meeting in York. sexual orientation - could top the list anywhere south But when complaints about the diversity criteria of the Wash-Bristol Channel line, where the most reached a crescendo in the south west - over the winnable seats were. effective exclusion of former MPs - regional chair Gail The party sought advice from the Equalities and Bones circulated a note to members which said: “The Human Rights Commission (EHRC). It has issued National Party have chosen to ascribe specific diversity guidance on when it is permissible to take measures criteria around the candidate selection process. This to help under-represented groups, and this would still has been imposed on Regions from above and it has have stopped the Lib Dems using male-female zipping. been made clear that there is no changing this.” Some clung to the get-out that European elections It isn’t clear from Bones’s note whether ‘national’ were omitted from the commission’s list of elections to meant ‘English’ or ‘federal’, but she went on: “There which its guidance was applicable, but it turned out has been no communication from the national party to this omission existed because when written in 2018 it members to date and we have decided this needs to be never occurred to the commission that there would be rectified. more European elections. “If any of you have thoughts on this you wish to The EHRC said it could not give legal advice but share then please send them to the party president, M 4 Sal Brinton who has been closely involved with this to cooperate over a general election but they see the decision and can best answer any queries.” European elections as an opportunity to experiment Brinton of course is the federal president, not an with their new brand and don’t need a national English officer. infrastructure to compete. As both supporters and opponents of the diversity “We have had offers to cooperate from the Advance criteria try to find where responsibility lies, a game of party but they have little to offer and we declined. pass the parcel has ensued among party officers. I haven’t talked to but our previous national/local collaboration, while successful, was not PASSING ANOTHER PARCEL well received in the party.” The farce of disciplinary action against former It’s not clear whether this means collaboration was Bradford East MP David Ward continues ill-received in the Lib Dems or Greens, but is an odd (Liberator 395 and others too numerous to comment given there was a such a pact in Cable’s own mention) with the matter ping-ponging from seat. English to federal levels. There was though then an attempt to have a joint Ward has said that the English Regional Parties ‘remain’ candidate in the Peterborough by-election, Committee (RPC) rejected his application to re-join with the Lib Dems, Green and Change UK all standing the party, his membership having been revoked down in favour of an independent. for standing against the official Lib Dem candidate Their choice though lighted on Femi Oluwole, a imposed on Bradford East in 2017, when Ward stood Labour supporter who runs the as an independent. This followed then leader Tim campaign, and who came under pressure not to stand Farron’s accusation of anti-Semitism against Ward from the Labour-dominated People’s Vote campaign to and ditching him as a candidate. which it is affiliated. Ward has admitted that standing as an independent Why choose such a compromised figure, and who took was “clearly an infringement of the party’s the decision the Lib Dems would be willing to stand constitution”, but says he did this in protest at his down? removal as the Lib Dem candidate without being told which words of his had allegedly given offence or being ISLE OF LEWES afforded the opportunity to appeal. Amid the general rejoicing at Lib Dem local He said the RPC has now told him the two years that election results, Lewes stuck out like a sore had passed since he lost his membership was not long thumb, gaining the unwanted distinction of being enough and it would bring the party into disrepute to one of a handful of places with a Lib Dem net loss allow him back in so soon. The RPC has not though and the only one where this exceeded one. Lewes, said how long it thinks would be appropriate. despite having had an MP as recently as 2015, The matter went back to the RPC after it had dropped four seats. previously decided not to reinstate Ward. The place has been riven with internecine disputes He took that to the English appeals panel, which over PPC Kelly-Marie Blundell - who has now stood said the RPC did not have the power to make such a down - attempts to suspend a member, the English decision. RPC chair Margaret Joachim then appealed party alienating some key activists (though not to the Federal Appeals Panel, which ruled that it did. others) and much else. The Lib Dems did though gain If Ward now goes back to the English panel this majorities on three of four town councils. federal ruling will influence things. So too might One observer noted: “A disunited party never wins, the presence of a legal adviser with Ward, who has plus [there was] heavy targeting from the Greens.” been persuaded by supporters that he needs such representation in dealing with the party. GUESS THE NUMBER Some may have been curious as to why the TAMING THE TIGGERS lists of Lib Dem European election candidates Talks were held in the early stages of the in England were announced with a number of European elections about some sort of deal unsuccessful candidates missing. between the Lib Dems, Greens and Change This was a by-product of the rush to get candidates UK, but it all came to nothing, though with an in place, as Westminster-approved candidates who put intriguing hint of collaboration in a general themselves forward faced an additional interview to be election, though the TIGger disintegration may validated to stand for Europe. have put the mockers on this. On the compressed timescale this meant these Fiona Hall, the former north east MEP, wrote to interviews occurred after voting had started in many Vince Cable to warn: “We share a common position cases, with those who were unsuccessful thus being but if we stand as separate parties the message ineligible to be candidates even when they were will inevitably be fragmented - as will our electoral already running campaigns to get on the list. support. This meant they had to be removed, their first “In other EU countries it is not unusual to have a preferences ignored and counted only from second grouping acting as an umbrella for different parties preferences onwards. and I hope we could find a way to do this under UK Rather than admit this had happened, the party electoral rules. But time is very, very short.” quietly ignored them in the results. Cable replied that Electoral Commission rules made this impossible as it does not allow for joint lists between registered parties. He went on: “I tried out the idea of cooperation with Change UK but there was no interest. They may want M 5 ARE THEY UP TO THE JOB THEN? Liberator has sent a questionnaire to Liberal Democrat leadership contenders ever since 1988

This time, it goes to The tectonic plates of British just because of a good set of and , two candidates politics are shifting more election results. They’re joining whose ambitions to become dramatically than even the us because we’re the only party leader have been pretty public early 1980s – we have to think in UK politics taking a clear, from the moment they regained very carefully! pro-European stand on the their seats in 2017. To state the obvious, the biggest issue of the day. The coronation of Vince Cable in Europeans followed great local But ‘Stop Brexit’ placards 2017 was unavoidable but had the elections, and the national polls alone can’t beat the rising tide unfortunate side effect that he was since have been very encouraging. of populism. We must set out a never challenged over his ideas and My sense canvassing and talking to positive vision for the future to attributes for the job. activists during both the locals and counter the hateful and divisive one Its common for people to want to Europeans was that many of the on offer by the other side. We need put very specific policy questions Tory Remainers switching to us, to be the party that sets out radical to would-be leaders but we’ve were switching semi-permanently: solutions to the climate emergency, tried to get both contenders to they were often lifelong Tories who outlines how we’ll take advantage think about what the party is for feel utterly betrayed, especially of the technological revolution and and what it should do now that it from business, economic and is clear about how we reshape our has unexpectedly and suddenly cultural perspectives – call them economy so that it works for people recovered its political standing from the Heseltines, though note, most and our planet. the post-coalition doldrums.` were far younger than Tarzan. That is how we continue to build Whoever wins will inherit a record The Labour Remainers switching on our recent success and we can membership, some good poll figures to us, I found to be more nuanced. create a strong liberal movement and the prospect of being able to In the broadest of terms, I sensed that acts as a rallying point for all convert into permanent support the that anti-Corbynista Remainers those who are liberal-minded, but hundreds of thousands of Remain are seriously considering quitting maybe not yet Liberal Democrats. supporters who ‘lent’ the party Labour permanently. Call them the their vote recently. Campbells – not all there yet, but QQShould the party seek to On the downside, they will still either tearing up their party cards only have MPs in low double figures and affiliations or watching closely establish a core vote and - and a party now only really known the moves of Tom Watson et al. if so from which parts for being pro-Remain and which Other Corbyn Remainers switching of the electorate should lacks much intellectual ferment to us, are less likely to stick and this be drawn, and not? while also having a policy process will go back, though the younger that can grind the excitement out of they are, the more chance we have Jo Swinson: There are millions any idea. of even retaining their support. of people out there who are Each candidate was given the Other issues – see below, but in liberals but not yet Liberal same word count to use between list form: climate change, social Democrats, and I want to lead the questions as they chose and justice and core liberal values, from our party to make these people their responses have not been internationalism to equality and our core vote. edited. human rights. I do think we need People who believe immigration These are the questions. We hope a strong economic strategy, which benefits our country, people who you find the answers illuminating. can appeal to both One Nation are determined to tackle the Tories who share our worries about climate emergency and people QQWere the European the divisions Brexit has caused/ who believe the UK is better off in election results a one- revealed and the threat of a break- Europe. off or can the support up of the UK, and to liberal Labour, All of them are crying out for who want to know we reject a home. As the Conservatives gained be kept and what austerity. other issues would you chase after the Brexit Party and Labour vacate the field entirely, raise? Jo Swinson: I really believe we we are seeing their voters flock to can keep this going us as a liberal alternative that is Ed Davey: No, they were not and build on it. The 17,000 new committed to resolve the issues a one-off, and much of that members who have joined since they care about. support can certainly be kept. the local elections aren’t joining M 6 Ed Davey: Whilst the aim of to show voters the precise terms of the hard reality is that for us to establishing more of a core vote is any deal, from the start – and we win parliamentary elections, we sensible it cannot be exclusive. We didn’t in 2010. will still need a good local party cannot and must not appeal just to organisation and strong local the socially liberal, well educated, Jo Swinson: The honest government credentials – and we pro-EU professionals who reside in answer is I wouldn’t break just don’t have that everywhere. So metropolitan areas and university the promise in the first place. targeting for the so-called “ground towns. While the policy has meant war” remains essential – though A vital part of the liberal and more young people from I am keen for a more strategic social democrat traditions is a disadvantaged backgrounds approach to developing the next concern for social justice and those going to university than ever wave of council and parliamentary who are left behind. As someone before, the plain fact is that we targets. who grew up in Sutton-in-Ashfield, broke a crystal-clear promise, Mansfield and central Nottingham, and it’s one of my biggest QQWould you regard your and who has campaigned with regrets that I didn’t do more to election as leader as local council candidates in stop it at the time. I remember traditional Labour areas, I am a mandate to take the totally convinced our messages can how I felt in the pit of my party in a particular be sold to less prosperous, more stomach when I heard what we political direction, and Leave-voting areas. Nor should planned to do, and I’ve learned if so what? we exclude traditional Liberal to trust my gut instinct, and heartlands, that are more rural and never again fail to challenge a Ed Davey: No, but with one more non-conformist be they in the decision that I believed to be exception below. The Leader of south-west, East Anglia or Wales wrong. our party rightly needs to keep and Scotland. We have to work And we were punished for it. consulting and working with out how a Remain, pro-EU party We went from 57 MPs down to the wider party – and given the can win votes in Leave-leaning eight. But I think the fact that state of British politics, the next we’re now seeing a new surge in areas – and part of the answer is Leader will need to do that more to win the argument and to reject support shows that people are willing to give us a second look and than any recent incumbent. appeasement. I am seeking a mandate to I want us to make the most of this Above all, we need to answer make climate change and the opportunity. the question – why vote Liberal environment far more central to Democrat, much better than we our campaigning and messaging have for some time. Call it our QQCan the Liberal than for many years, and if I win I brand, call it our cause – we haven’t Democrats really ‘win will seek to do that. communicated it well for some everywhere’ or does this time. Paddy Ashdown obsessed approach necessarily Jo Swinson: I want to rally about this – and made us the party a liberal movement to stand of education and environment, and mean they can lose up for our values and against won votes from a wide group as a everywhere too? result. Sometimes you shouldn’t the forces of populism and reinvent the wheel. Jo Swinson: There is no limit nationalism. I think it is our to my ambitions for the Liberal responsibility as the undisputed QQIf you were in the same Democrats. We’ve seen that the old, heart of the liberal movement position as two-party system is collapsing and in the UK to counter the hateful was over tuition fees there is a huge space for the Liberal and divisive narrative of Farage (a pledge made then Democrats to stand as the answer and Johnson, and offer a broken) how would you to the populism and nationalism positive alternative for an open, handle the problem? we’re seeing from people like Boris inclusive and internationalist Johnson and . society. Ed Davey: The lesson is – don’t If you look at the local and And I want to harness the make pledges you can’t keep. European election results, we have technological revolution for our And if you make a pledge, keep been winning everywhere, and I’m country’s future and to build an it. not satisfied to settle for a strategy economy that puts people and the that relies on building up slowly Should one currently planet first. Our current system over the next 20 years. Given the “unforeseeable” day arrive where is failing in so many ways and challenges we face, our country a Coalition negotiation occurs we need to be far bolder about can’t afford to wait 20 years for us and a Special Conference of the challenging age-old economic to be ready, so I want us to win party votes to back a proposed thinking to ensure we can build a everywhere we can, now. deal, the other lesson is that greener, richer, safer society – now any “compromises” in that deal and for generations to come. Ed Davey: Whilst we can win should be highlighted from the Our party exists to build and (almost) everywhere as a one off, get-go, and not smoothed over. safeguard a fair, free and open I don’t think we can consistently Total transparency at this level society, in which we seek to balance as we can’t be all things to all of political trade-off is almost the fundamental values of liberty, people and seeking to do so will certainly the best course. It’s best equality and community, and in dilute our messages. Moreover, which no one shall be enslaved by M 7 poverty, ignorance or conformity. think about how they contribute form of electricity. We led That’s the preamble to our to climate crisis and how it affects the negotiations in Europe to constitution. I believe my vision them, and it will give investors win ambitious EU emission delivers on that promise, and I the information they need to move reduction targets that played a am the best person to turn it into money to lower-risk greener assets. key role on the path to the Paris reality. And, with more than 2500 Climate Treaty. councillors and our numerous Then on the back of proving our QQWhat policies should council gains at the last local credibility, we need a massive the party put forward to elections, we can use our local package of policies to apply low government power base to continue address climate change? and zero carbon technologies to to make a real difference in our power, transport and domestic communities by implementing Jo Swinson: We should start and industrial heating and progressive green policies. agriculture. We need to upgrade by not calling it climate change. The big challenge we face is being It’s a climate emergency, a our international climate work. The in a position to implement them, Climate Change policy paper due to climate crisis, and we should and to do that we need a leader who come to this Autumn’s Conference talk about it in those terms. can get out and sell those policies is very good. It’s one of the key asks of the on the media, and I believe that I’ve And my particular focus is on Extinction Rebellion, who I got the energy and communication a fundamental, systemic change protested with in London. skills to do that. in our capitalist economic model: On the broader point, I don’t we need to make the banks, the actually think the challenge we Ed Davey: We should first pension funds, the debt markets face is knowing the answers on promote our fantastic record – to and the stock exchanges take the climate emergency. As a party, show we have more credibility account of climate risks and climate we have fantastic policies, like on this than any British political costs in all their decision-making. reaching net zero greenhouse gas party, ever. Our work at local If we decarbonise capitalism in emissions by 2045 and for 60% of and European levels should this way, we can shift trillions of our energy to come from renewables be highlighted, as well as dollars, euros and pounds from by 2030 – though I think we should the dramatic nearly fourfold fossil fuel investment to green be even more ambitious on the increase in renewable power, technologies – and catalyse not just latter. under Lib Dem Ministerial Britain’s shift to net zero but also One thing I would add is to make leadership. We led the way to the world’s – as 15% of global fossil it mandatory for companies to make Britain a world leader fuel investment is funded via the report on their climate risks and City of London. to disclose that information to in offshore wind – and to investors. It will make companies drive down the costs of green power so it is now the cheapest M 8 QQIf Brexit does take place should we become the party of ‘back in’ the EU?

Ed Davey: Yes. It simply isn’t credible to pretend our beliefs and values have changed, due to political developments not going our way: were Brexit to happen, I won’t change my views! There would be challenges campaigning to re-join – and we would need to think carefully about how we do that, listening to our core support. Yet we must remain the internationalist, pro- European co-operation party we have always been.

Jo Swinson: I haven’t given up on stopping Brexit at all! But our party history has been built on pro-European foundations. We’ve always had an internationalist outlook, always said that we succeed when we work with our allies across borders and work within international institutions. So I will always believe that the interests of our country are best served by being inside the EU, which is why it’s vital that we deliver a People’s Vote and then stop Brexit.

QQHow are we to raise the resources to fix crumbling public the country and I believe I am the architect of the Scrap Council Tax person to lead it. Resourcing our campaign in 2003-04, I believe we services? public services properly will be at can win our case on tax, if we have the heart of that. a clear, simple message. Jo Swinson: I was proud And I’m keen on more radical that in our 2017 manifesto Ed Davey: By borrowing, long term tax reform. Replacing we were clear that we would taxing and switching spending the disastrous business rates with reverse planned Conservative from things we don’t want to do, a land value tax, coupled with a cuts to the corporation tax to things we do! proper taxation system for digital rate. The UK already has This means a fresh approach to retail, would be a start – but I’m one of the lowest rates in the fiscal policy – where we recognise keen on radical decentralisation of G20, so there is absolutely no that good investment pays for itself national income tax, to give local need to go further as some of and can generate a return above authorities a fairer, more buoyant the Conservative leadership the debt servicing costs, and we tax base. candidates are suggesting. recognise interest rates remain low. I believe we need to The case for higher borrowing for fundamentally reshape our local and national investment in QQDo you regret the economy. We need a public debate infrastructure therefore remains Coalition’s austerity about the kind of society we want high. to be and then direct our resources policies and what at making that happen. New Higher taxation will be necessary should be done to Zealand, for example, are putting but it must be modest, targeted address the dismantling forward a budget that for the first and carefully designed – not just of the welfare state? time prioritises wellbeing over to win political support, but also to economic growth, an issue I have prevent negative economic effects. Ed Davey: The reality is the been writing about and working As one of the architects of the Coalition’s spending plans since 2006. This is exactly the “1p on income tax for education” were rather similar to those kind of debate that is needed in back in 1990/91, and the principal planned by Labour’s Alistair M 9 Darling, and we have let Labour in hard times. Welfare shouldn’t ED DAVEY get away with blaming us for just help people to survive, but thrive, and that is why we need to BIOGRAPHY the inevitable squeeze that Ed first got active in politics after any Government would have match welfare with opportunities, reading Seeing Green by Jonathan imposed, back in 2010, when for example ensuring everyone is Porritt as a teenager – and green issues the country was borrowing over equipped with basic digital skills have remained close to his heart ever £350 million a day. to allow them to find work and since. After serving as the economics adviser to Paddy Ashdown, Ed won his And there is no doubt that provide better lives for themselves and their families. seat of Kingston and Surbiton in 1997, squeeze would have been much when it was 106th on the target list. worse but for Liberal Democrats From there, Ed has helped Liberal stopping the more right wing QQWho is your current Democrats across the country, at all cutting tendencies of Osborne and political hero? levels, get elected, including a diverse Gove – the latter wanting to slash and majority female group in his home borough. education spending, which we Jo Swinson: That’s a tough In 2012 Ed became the Secretary of stopped. one! When I was a child it State for Energy and Climate Change The big spending mistakes of was Anita Roddick, whose where he quadrupled renewable power the Coalition was the early cut campaigns on environmentalism and made the UK the world leader in back on public investment, which offshore wind. inspired me to get involved in After losing his seat in 2015, Ed didn’t make economic sense, as activism. well as some of the benefit cuts campaigned hard for Remain at the Nowadays there are so many referendum, and gained his seat back in which hit the least well off. We did to choose from. I love the work 2017. Since then Ed has been fighting make these points strongly within that Led by Donkeys are doing to for us to keep our place in Europe, government but we should have highlight the lies and hypocrisy pushing for a proper response to the made our points more forcefully to climate emergency, and helping Liberal of the Brexit campaign all around the wider public as well. Democrats get elected across the the country – and doing so with a And of course we need to stop the country. healthy dose of humour. I’m a big dismantling of the welfare state. fan of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, We need to consider new radical who is shaking up Washington with ideas across the piece – starting her new approach to politics. with housing benefit. We must For me though, it’s Jacinda remember that the state used to Ardern. The courage, humanity and spend its housing subsidies on compassion she demonstrated after bricks and mortar, subsidising the terror attacks showed the kind council homes. Now a lot of housing of leader she is. She is someone benefit subsidy is going to private who understands the incredible landlords, some of whom are JO SWINSON power they have as a figurehead to providing very poor housing for shape how people respond to those BIOGRAPHY it. I want to examine the case for Jo is part of a new generation of situations. capitalising future housing benefit politicians who work across party lines I think the world would be a much payments and switching them into to solve the big issues. better place if we had more leaders a more ambitious council house She was first inspired by Body Shop willing to respond like that, than entrepreneur Anita Roddick. Since building programme. to rush to the politics of anger and then, she has campaigned to save division that we’re seeing more and our environment, including securing Jo Swinson: I’ve been very more. commitments from manufacturers publicly clear that there were to reduce excessive food packaging. some policies, like the bedroom As a business minister, Jo introduced Ed Davey: Paddy Ashdown. I shared parental leave, extended tax, that I regret. It was just a joined the party partly because flexible working rights, clamped bad policy and it shouldn’t have he inspired me so much. From down on unscrupulous payday happened. the environment to Europe, lenders, increased penalties on rogue The financial crisis should employers failing to pay workers the from education to how to build minimum wage, improved corporate have been the wake-up call to and motivate a campaigning fundamentally change the way we transparency, introduced new rights for party, he was just superb. Even consumers buying digital content and do things – but as a country we when I disagreed with him – made gender pay gap reporting happen. failed to take that opportunity. not least on his Lib-Lab plans Jo has always loved technology. Her I think we are on the brink of first computer was a Spectrum ZX 48K, another revolution that could help after the 1997 Blair landslide she learnt programming at school and us fundamentally reshape our – I thought he was an amazing she now leads the Liberal Democrats’ economy and our society – the tech Liberal. He was, is and will Technology Commission. revolution. continue to be my political hero. Jo joined the Liberal Democrats at the age of 17. By 25 she was the Advances in technology could help youngest member of the House of boost productivity and deliver those Commons, representing her home gains back to people. We need to constituency East Dunbartonshire. start putting people and planet first Jo lost her seat in 2015. She set up – our welfare state is something her own business and wrote her book we should be proud of, giving Equal Power, before winning against the SNP by a 10% margin in 2017 and people dignity and a safety net becoming deputy leader. M 10 IN - OUT - PENDING Whoever becomes the next Liberal Democrat leader, they can look forward to an overflowing in-tray. Sarah Green takes a look inside In ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ the party struck gold with without an element of farce. And given the party is a simple message that resonates with voters. still tainted by recent scandals (and there is no real With 16 MEPs an increase of 700 councillors indication that we’ve learned from them), the new and a respectable result in the Peterborough by- leader would do well to get behind the new disciplinary election, there’s no doubt the party’s fortunes process. seems to have turned. The new leader inherits The electorate for this leadership election is party a buoyant and upbeat party, with membership members, the majority of whom joined after 2015. hovering around the 100,000 mark. This contest They were clearly not put off by our reputation in coalition. But until very recently the Liberal has the potential to galvanise members and Democrats were languishing at 8% in the polls, capture the imagination of the wider voting public suggesting the wider voting public were not yet ready as the candidates promote their vision(s) for a to give the party another hearing. Voters who were our Liberal 21st Century Britain. natural supporters and those who lent us their vote The race is on - but what is waiting for the next lost faith in the Liberal Democrats. The next leader leader of the Liberal Democrats? has to earn it back. To be blunt, we can’t stop Brexit with a sweary It is widely expected that he or she will be at the slogan. The most immediate question therefore helm for more than one parliamentary term. This concerns the level of cooperation with Remain parties gives them the space and time to make their mark not and MPs to prevent Britain leaving the EU. just on the party but on British politics. To do so the The arithmetic in the House of Commons demands new leader will need to inspire both internally and smart politics, not grandstanding. That feeds into how externally. the new leader approaches Remain MPs and groupings We live in unprecedented times. But history, while across the house. Is ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ our mantra for rarely repeated often rhymes. In the 20th century all routes that keep us in the or only progressives enjoyed major victories in 1906, 1945 and when it suits the fortunes of the party? 1997 in part due to cross-party working. Moreover, On which point, should the new leader offer the anti-Conservative forces have been divided and remnants of Change UK the hand of friendship now the story of the last century is one of Conservative that it has been smashed at the ballot box? Indeed, domination. it is possible that some of the MPs that have now With the two main parties at Westminster now left Change UK will consider defecting to the Liberal in severe disarray, the Liberal Democrats holding Democrats. Managing these relationships will require a clear position on the biggest issue of the day and bold leadership and a deftness of touch. voters seriously considering us again, the opportunity Beyond Brexit, what does the party have to say? As to permanently break the existing two party system voters start to consider us again after making us sit has never been more real. Or more needed. Can Ed or on the naughty step post-coalition, the new leader will Jo capitalise on that? Will the new leader be open to need to offer more than a catchy headline or two. What collaboration and even electoral pacts or do they think will Jo Swinson or Ed Davey have to say of substance we should go it alone? about the health service, social care, education or the Either way, it will require bold, decisive action and economy? for the leader to take the party with them. There are also internal challenges waiting for the leader’s attention too. It was only a few months ago Sarah Green is a member of the Liberator Collective that the party made a quarter of HQ staff redundant thanks to a serious hole in the budget. What is in place to make sure that doesn’t happen again? And it’s worth pointing out that our most recent fantastic set of election results came on the back of depleting our already stretched staff - they are much maligned, undervalued and under appreciated. How will the new leader ensure our staff have the proper resource, support and career development we should be offering? Does it require a change in senior management? Or another look at the party structures which didn’t anticipate the gap in party finances? Indeed, the creaking committee system wasn’t agile enough to respond adequately to Your Liberal Britain and couldn’t manage the most recent EU selections M 11 WHAT THE BBC WON’T TELL YOU Liberals saw a renaissance in the European Parliament elections, despite the media emphasis on the populist right, says David Grace

I spent the late evening of European election I have grouped together the Europe of Nations and night, as so often, shouting at the BBC. Freedom (ENF) and Europe of Freedom and Direct Sometimes I think they’re biased but mostly I Democracy (EFDD) as the two Eurosceptic groups think their failure to ‘educate and inform’ (as well as that Brexit MEPs might join, but they are separate entertain) is grounded in determined ignorance. They groups and indeed previous Ukip MEPs have split reported the European Parliament elections as if they up and joined both. Farage was chairing the EFDD. were only taking place in Britain and then under a Incidentally while all the members of these two groups first past the post system instead of an admittedly are Eurosceptic, they do not all want their countries to poor version of a proportional one. Consequently they leave the EU. focussed on the success of Farage’s Brexit Party in the You cannot divide the European Parliament like UK with an occasional slight mention of Le Pen’s and Britain into Leavers and Remainers but you can make Salvini’s successes in and Italy. a broad division between those on the one hand who It was as if the BBC had become the communications want the European Union to develop (pro) and those department of the populist right. After an hour and who either want it to retreat into a Europe of nations a half they managed to get a Liberal Democrat in or disappear altogether (con). the studio at last and it was left to Alistair Campbell Scoring results in that way shows pro: 510 (down to explain to the viewers that Remain parties had from 521), con: 175 (up from 155). I have left out the done better than brexiters. Thus our national public European United Left/Nordic Green Left 38 members broadcaster missed the big story of the night, the because they don’t fit neatly into either category. Liberal renaissance across Europe. Thus, the first clear message of the elections is that, Before this year’s elections, the two biggest groups although the Eurosceptic vote is up, the majority for in the European Parliament were the European further in the EU is still huge. People’s Party (mainly Christian Democrats but not The second clear message is that ALDE has increased Tories because they left under Cameron, disliking enormously and will have a crucial role in the new the federalist views of the group) and the Alliance of parliament as EPP and S&D no longer control over Socialists and Democrats (including the Labour Party) half the votes. The parliament’s agenda is derived which between them had always held over half the from an annual work programme agreed with the votes and thus controlled business between them. European Commission but the detailed timetable and Our group the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for division of work between committees is agreed by the Europe (ALDE) had been fourth after the European parliament’s bureau which has all groups on it. Conservatives and Reformists (Tories and assorted Compare this with the House of Commons business right-wing nutters). As the table below shows that has which is controlled by the government and announced all changed. on Thursday afternoon’s by the leader of the house EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 2019

UK PARTY EU GROUP MEPS 2014 MEPS 2019 % UK MEPS - EPP 216 179 23.9 0 LABOUR S&D 184 153 20.4 10 LIBDEM ALDE 69 105 14.0 16 TORIES ECR 77 63 8.4 4 GREEN GREEN 52 73 9.8 7 BREXIT ENF +EFDD 78 112 15.0 29

M 12 (until recently the ghastly Andrea Loathesome). the UK had its highest European turnout, sadly only So who are our European family in ALDE? It must be 36.9% whereas across the union, the average was admitted that ALDE is a broad church, embracing not 50.99%. only variations of liberalism but also politicians who The experiment worked in 2014 in that the EPP had had never before described themselves as Liberals. the highest vote and their candidate the Luxembourger ALDE describes itself as “the group that stands Jean-Claude Junker became president. There was no firm for European values. We believe the European resonance in the UK as the Tories had no candidate Union is a community of values. ALDE believes and the Liberals and Labour totally failed to promote values are the outcome of ongoing public debate, of the idea itself or their groups’ candidates. Indeed Nick the confrontation of ideas and convictions, of a process Clegg rigged the British votes in ALDE to oppose Guy shaped, directed and owned by citizens themselves. Verhofstadt’s nomination because he was frightened of ALDE puts values first.” the latter’s federalism. For the 2019 elections, people For anyone who finds this a little vague, I can tried to run the Spitzenkandidat system again. Given recommend an academic study of the positions impending Brexit, once again the British public were taken by ALDE (and other groups) in the European unaware. Parliament: https://bit.ly/2HVTdVb For some weird reason ALDE decided not to run a The breadth of opinion may be about to widen Spitzenkandidat but instead to have a seven-person further as the president of the parliamentary group, panel called Team Europe from which a commission the redoubtable Guy Verhofstadt, proposes to create a president could be picked. The team included the new group by merging ALDE with President Macron’s current commissioner responsible for competition Renaissance Group: Europe en Marche. Macron’s own policy, Margrethe Vestager, who is from our friends in views on the desirability of this have changed over Radikale Venstre. time. The EPP remains the largest group after the Meanwhile, here’s an overview of where the MEPs elections and now expect the European Council to come from. ALDE was built up by Graham Watson nominate their man, Manfred Weber who has been and others on the basis of the old European Liberals leading their group. Weber is from Bavaria’s Christian and Democrats and Reformists (ELDR) to which were Social Union and is not everyone’s cup of tea. He added a multiplicity of parties from new member promotes an ever closer union as set out in the Treaty states. In many countries, ALDE has more than one of Rome but his voting record includes supporting the national member party and in some they fight each United Kingdom’s drive to freeze welfare payments other at national level. for EU immigrants and not banning so-called gay For example, in Denmark, Venstre (Danish for ‘left’ conversion therapies. but that is only of historical significance) now often The treaties provide that the European Council forms the core of a right-wing government whereas nominates the commission president but it is the Radikale Venstre (Social Liberals like most of us) is European Parliament which elects the postholder. more often to be found in a left-wing coalition and was Donald Tusk, as president of the European Council, the model for the Moderates in the wonderful Borgen has the task of arranging negotiations about the TV series. nomination. Wonder of wonders., the biggest component in ALDE Now other names have come up including today is provided by the British Liberal Democrats 15 Margarethe Vestager. She has been popular and MEPs and one Alliance Party MEP. successful taking on both Google and Apple in her Macron’s group will outnumber that with 21 role as competition commissioner. The parliament has members. Next, the Romanians provide eight as does until 21 June to come up with a candidate who would Spain (from 6six different parties), the Germans command the support of the house. seven, the Czechs six and the Dutch six (from two very Here is an interesting parallel with Westminster different parties, VVD and D66), the Danes five (two conventions. In theory the British PM should be the parties), the Belgians four (two parties). person who commands support of the Commons, not The rest come from other countries but the new just the choice of the largest party, currently the Tories group contains no-one from Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, who do not have a majority. If the UK ends up with Italy, Latvia, Malta, Poland and Portugal. Looks like Boris but the EU gets Vestager, which system would ALDE’s leaders need to spend a bit more time courting you call more democratic? in the Mediterranean. Glad to see that we now have If you have found this all too simple, there is one two Hungarian MEPs in the group, who can stand up small matter which could affect it all – Brexit. to the demagoguery of Viktor Orban. The European Parliament currently has 751 seats, of Five years ago European group leaders with the which the UK occupies 73. It has been decided that if support of some national governments established the the UK leaves, parliament will go down to 705 and 27 Spitzenkandidat system, although there is nothing in of the UK’s seats will be reallocated to other countries. the treaties about it. The idea was that each political Thus, many countries have actually elected MEPs group would nominate a candidate to be president of to occupy these ‘Brexit seats”’and these people await the commission. After the EP elections established anxiously to discover whether the UK actually leaves. which group had the most votes, the European Council Don’t we all ? (heads of government) would duly nominate the candidate of the winning party. The idea was to give David Grace is a member of the Liberator Collective the voters a direct effect on the choice of commission president and thus to give the EP elections more resonance, rather necessary given average turnouts across Europe of less than 50%. Incidentally this year M 13 IDENTITY POLITICS BEYOND BREXIT Everyone at York was given a copy of Vince Cable’s pamphlet, which raises issues of realignment, political identity and the B word. Susan Simmonds discusses why Being able to review the latest pamphlet by Vince content, the title is Liberal Politics for the Age of Cable in the light of a very, very decent – if not Identity. And Cable is very clear in asserting that brilliant – euro election result not only adds to its Liberal politics can thrive in an age of identity. But I relevance, but also provides much richer territory think there are a number of unexplored issues which to explore than when it was first published in challenge but fundamentally do not undermine his assertion. March. Cable doesn’t enter into extensive definitions of, or That said the recent election results - the euros discussions about, identity within politics. Admittedly in particular - illuminates some of its potential this is a big academic area, full of rich definitions, contradictions. language, personal stories from many cultures and The pamphlet Beyond Brexit – Liberal Politics for the would be difficult to capture in a pamphlet such as Age of Identity is a collection of essays which attempts this. to provide a roadmap for liberals, social democrats and So critiquing around this level of opaqueness adds progressives in a world after Brexit. a probably unintended level of complexity. However, While our unequivocal message of opposition to Cable does make one pertinent comment by way of Brexit has paid recent electoral dividends, there has definition; “one feature of so-called ‘identity politics’ been justifiable concern expressed, within all political is that the previously accepted norms of rational parties, that discussion of other policy issues has been economic debate do not seem to apply – in effect, completely stifled by the impasse in Parliament and people vote against their own apparent self-interest”. its domination of the media and conversations in the This comment is worth exploring further for two public space. This pamphlet provides a counterweight reasons. Firstly Cable views identity politics as to that. causing political schisms along lines of social identity The essays provide precise and incisive analysis rather than recognising and acting on them. This is of major issues that include economics, housing, an important point as it can potentially perpetuate inequality and taking the green economy seriously. So marginalisation through affirmations of difference. many of Cable’s proposals are evidently obvious – and The UK political system has always to some extent for that he is to be congratulated - that I have found worked with identity politics. Ethnicity, religion, little to disagree with in either his analysis or his class, gender and sexual orientation have always solution. This may suggest that I don’t think very hard had an impact on how parties see themselves and or don’t know what I am talking about, but my lack of how they formulate and deliver their policy and disagreement actually reflects that Cable is writing legislation. Some parties in government have passed at a sufficiently strategic level not to provoke critical genuinely progressive legislation on women’s rights, discussion or engagement around the detail. equal marriage and minority rights; others to their And at this strategic level the pamphlet could shame opposed this and passed oppressive legislation actually provide much of the policy declaration that in recognition of appeasing and pandering to their Change UK should have organised before their launch. membership bias and phobias. SCREWED UP ON BASICS Secondly, Cable’s comments imply there is a shift Thankfully they didn’t and also screwed up on a in the depth and placement of identity politics in UK number of other basic functions that a competent society. His comments that people are voting against – if new - political party should be able to manage. their own apparent economic self interest suggests Although it is an undeserved misfortune that such that this is a phenomena that is embedded outside principled politicians as Heidi Allen and Anna Soubrey the more explored areas of identity politics. Whether should turn out to be such public and unmerited his comments imply that people believe that they are casualties of the carnage of Brexit. doing so irrationally, rather than believing they are Commiserations aside, how far Cable’s ideas can and rationally voting in their own best interest is one for should be part of any politics of realignment is part further exploration. of a discussion that as a party we need to have. In my My experience of spending time in a Brexit voting view that should best be left to the candidates in the economically neglected seaside town, is that people upcoming leadership contest to illuminate and expand voting for Brexit strongly and passionately believe that upon and for the members to test at the hustings. And they are voting in their own self interest, believing as an undecided voter, their thoughts on this will play that it will release jobs for locals rather than migrants a major part in making my choice. and free-up scarce social housing. They may be wrong, But having given Cable a largely free pass on the but that is what they believe and so far no amount M 14 of evidence from experts has is not to say that it has not changed their views. Although always existed and the Labour I’m not sure in parts of Thanet “Frankly blatant and Conservative parties have that any political party has tried always been given an electoral very hard. lies are winning advantage by that and one For that reason I think that the that as a Liberal party we have impact and direction of identity the game. There is struggled to get cut through politics in the UK is changing. with our policy positions. It has always existed, but prior no shame in telling But if calmly setting out the to Brexit much of the sentiment facts and evidence is of course had no place of expression them, no shame or right, in an age of fake news and which provided it with a scepticism about the views of respectable voice or legitimate career penalties in experts, this may not be enough. representation. Frequently And I’m equally pessimistic for people who felt ‘left behind’ being caught out in any other political party which didn’t vote or even bother to has a thoughtful policy agenda. register to vote. Or they did a lie – provided the Frankly blatant lies are what we saw in Barking and winning the game. There is no Dagenham in local elections in electorate like it” shame in telling them, no shame 2006 which was to vote for the or career penalties in being BNP who became the official caught out in a lie – provided opposition on the council. the electorate like it - and there Brexit has been an enabler and a definer of a social are no umpires with any clout to impose any sanctions. identity. For those who wanted it, it has provided a The old filters of the media and political parties being platform for casual racism and provided a veneer of responsible and regulated for their messages have long decency or mood music that has allowed attacks on gone. and undermining of our societal cohesiveness. It has damaged democracy, civil society and trust in both the TOOTHLESS TIGER political process and individual politicians. And against the rise of social media, sadly the However, at best Brexit has shone a light on a Electoral Commission has become a toothless tiger phenomenon that already existed. It has provided lacking the powers to deal with its reach or impact. a description of the most recent manifestation Nor is being proven right after the event - as the Lib of identity politics. This allows us to examine it, Dems were after the Iraq war or will be about Brexit dissect, review, assess and as Liberals, reach rational - going to be any use except to keep us warm in bed at conclusions about how we deal with it. It may provide night or provide anecdotes around the fireplaces at the an opportunity for us as Liberals to build on our NLC. distinctive, liberal, social identity which is outward So if setting out the facts and evidence is not enough, looking, internationalist, pro-immigration – as the late how do we create cut through? The simple answers Simon Titley once described it; “drawbridge down”. – blatantly lie, create fake news ourselves or misuse Cable makes the point that in the age of identity, facts are not an option for us as a party which takes a Liberals can thrive. The euro elections have provided lot of care to behave with integrity and believes that to a useful and a somewhat unexpected test for that be important in aspiring to govern. Maybe we should assertion. The Lib Dems did well in the euros. We just say ‘bollocks’ instead. now have more MEP’s than we have ever had. Lib I confess I didn’t like it – it is not a word I am Dems topped the poll in London and we outpolled the comfortable using. Not because I’m prudish about Conservative and Labour parties. Supporters of other swearing but it is simply not part of my vocabulary. parties have been open about voting for us as the party However it seems to have provided an element of most able to send a message to the government that cut through and delivered our best euro result ever; they want Brexit stopped. although I’ll leave the discussion of the correlation Whether we can build on this is the last major between increasing our vote share and using non- point. Cable sets out his stall clearly when he says, inclusive and potentially offensive language to others. ”our response cannot be to banish experts and usher If we accept that we can thrive in the age of in an age of unreason. Rather we must be better at identity - and I do believe that Cable’s assertion is demonstrating what we believe, to calmly continue fundamentally correct - then we have to build on this setting out the facts and evidence – which these and ensure that we retain our new support and even essays seek to do – and to propose radical change take that message to places we have not been before. which leads to a more prosperous, socially just and Whether that is through our traditional campaigning environmentally sustainable society. Winning those tools or new political alliances is up for discussion. See arguments in the current divisive atmosphere is you at the hustings. much harder if living standards are squeezed and inequalities widen”. Susan Simmonds is a member of Thanet Liberal Democrats. I hope that the euro elections have taught us as a party many things – and I will leave others to do and Beyond Brexit – Liberal Politics for the Age of Identity. By Vince Cable. www. share the analysis, but there are a couple of points libdems.org that are pertinent. Firstly that identity politics is now deeply embedded into the British Party system and continue to influence the political discourse. That M 15 TIANANMEN AND DARFUR COME TO KHARTOUM The bloody crackdown on democracy activists in Sudan was encouraged by other Arab dictatorships as a warning to their own people, says Rebecca Tinsley You might have expected jubilation among every intersection, with soldiers waving the business British Sudanese on 11 April, when President end of machine guns in our faces because of putsch Omar Bashir was forced from power. On that rumours. Hence Sudanese could be forgiven for day, a diaspora group was attending a meeting believing it was too early to break out the fermented organised by Article 1, the charity I founded. camel’s milk this time. Instead of joy, however, we found fear that FOLLOW THE MONEY democracy activists back home would be tied The protests, which started in December, began when up in pointless negotiations as the transitional the International Monetary Fund told President military council bought time to regroup, and then Bashir to end subsidies on bread and fuel. Sudan has slaughtered the protesters. foreign debts of $55bn; it is subject to sanctions due to As predicted, the Sudanese security services have its genocidal campaign against its non-Arab citizens; now dispersed peaceful demonstrations with deadly and it is on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism force, killing at least 60, wounding 600, and raping - all impediments to accessing the international dozens of women, including female doctors. finance needed to modernise its feudal economy. On 3 June, as the operation began, the Rapid Support Instead of removing the subsidies gradually, as the Forces or Janjaweed (who made their mark killing IMF suggested, the regime did it all at once. The move at least 300,000 in Darfur) surrounded hospitals to backfired spectacularly. stop the wounded seeking help, and went into medical Khartoum devotes 75% of its annual budget to centres, beating doctors. They looted widely, dragging ‘security’ - the armed forces, the Rapid Support Forces/ people from cars and dumping bodies in the Nile. Janjaweed, and the National Intelligence and Security At the time of writing, there are 20,000 troops on the Service (the equivalent of MI5). streets of the capital. Because the internet has been Education, health and infrastructure have been cut, there are no reliable casualty figures from the neglected for decades as a consequence. Moreover, many uprisings in cities across Sudan. any non-security sector spending has benefited the Nor is it clear how much support the Janjaweed patronage network of self-identifying Arab ethnic militias have from the middle and junior ranks of groups along the Nile. These crony capitalists made the regular army. However, there will be little help fortunes from a construction boom, while the periphery from the international community, beyond the usual remains marginalised. toothless diplomatic condemnations: the UN Security Bashir’s regime has also stolen Sudan’s oil revenues, Council declined to even discuss events in Sudan, earning it the bottom ranking on Transparency thanks to the Russians and Chinese veto. International’s global league table. (A Wikileaks cable The head of the Janjaweed, General Mohamed from the US ambassador to Khartoum alleged Bashir Hamdan Dagolo, known to all as Hemeti, spent himself has $9bn in London banks). The result has the last week of May touring Egypt and the Gulf, been hyperinflation, unemployment and brain drain. consulting the Khartoum regime’s financial backers. Despite misty-eyed Western media reports about the When he returned, the transitional military council, solidarity and undoubted courage of the protesters, of which he is the de facto leader, expelled Al Jazeera, bear in mind that few of them objected when Bashir’s and shortly after, the assault on the demonstrators regime imposed its harsh version of Islam and began. General Sisi in Egypt and the Gulf Arab Arabisation on the non-Muslim black Africans in the monarchs made clear their priority: get protesters off southern part of Sudan, leading to the deaths of two the streets because of the message it sends to the rest million people, and the eventual secession in 2011 of of the Arab world democratic change can come from South Sudan. below. Moreover, the Saudis have been paying the Few of today’s protesters were concerned when the Janjaweed and the regular Sudanese army to provide regime sought to eliminate the black African tribes of 14,000 ground troops for their war in Yemen. A move Darfur from 2003 until the present day; it is therefore to civilian rule in Khartoum would have brought those ironic that the citizens of Khartoum and Omdurman troops home. have now experienced the brutality that Darfuris British Sudanese always knew how badly this have endured daily since 2003 at the hands of the episode in Sudanese history could end. There were Janjaweed. There has also been virtual silence from 14 coups between independence in 1956 and the one today’s protesters about the systematic bombardment that brought Bashir to power in 1989. On the night I of black African citizens in the Nuba Mountains since arrived in Khartoum in 2004, there were roadblocks at 2011. In other words, the trigger behind the revolution M 16 was economic hardship. Another feature of the uprising eluding the media is the irrelevance of Sudan’s opposition politicians, in line with global trends away from traditional parties. The protests were organised by the Sudanese Professionals Association, rather than the discredited old parties which have occasionally been bought off by the regime. A senior opposition figure failed to attend the protests, claiming he was “waiting for the right moment to join,” a statement confirming the demonstrators’ contempt for the appeasing older generation. Much has been made of the visibility of women in the protests. Yet, Sudanese women have always been involved in anti-regime activity for good reason - they have so little to lose. Islamism’s interpretation of Sharia accords them low status; in Khartoum state alone, 40,000 women a year are arrested and publicly beaten for ‘indecency’, like wearing jeans as critical threats, and the UK has actively encouraged they walk to school: and Sudan has one if the world’s business links with Bashir’s regime, even as it bombs highest rates of female genial mutilation. While it hospitals and schools in the (mainly Christian and has been encouraging to see women asserting their black African) Nuba Mountains. Sudan’s rulers always dignity during the protests, remember that Egyptian understood the West’s lack of sincerity about human women were also at the fore of protests in 2011, only rights, and acted accordingly, promising to abide by to be harassed and then banished to their traditional peace agreements that were broken before diplomats exploited status when the barricades came down. left Sudanese air space. All along, Sudanese Diaspora have warned about the determination of Sudan’s ‘deep state’. Bashir’s QUESTIONABLE INTELLIGENCE Islamist project began years before the 1989 military George W Bush was more critical of Bashir’s ethnic coup. Bashir and his colleagues systematically inserted cleansing, but Obama bowed to pressure from Saudi their followers into positions running hospitals, the Arabia, which bankrolled Bashir and his deep media, factories, the judiciary, universities, the clergy, state. Moreover, the CIA. has been fed questionable the military and civil service. Their tentacles extend intelligence about Islamist terrorists by Khartoum, everywhere and they are firmly entrenched. Now we (which once gave sanctuary to bin Laden) thereby know the transitional military council never had any inoculating the regime against serious pressure. The intention of moving to civilian rule. Their promises of US responded to years of ethnic cleansing by calling on elections within nine months have been condemned Bashir to enact reforms, wilfully ignoring the regime’s by Sudanese rights groups who point out that 40% of track record of broken promises and genocide. Sudan (Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan states) As for the UK, its historic foreign policy aims in the is at war with the regime, there is no accurate census, region were to bolster anti-Soviet regimes during the and the regime has decades of experience at stiffing Cold War, to discourage Arab nationalist movements ballot boxes and intimidating voters and opposition. thereby preventing Arab or Muslim unity in the Unlike Bashir and his colleagues, the Janjaweed Middle East, and to support autocrats in the name of commander, Hemeti, is not motivated by Islamism, but maintaining security (meaning selling arms to feudal by imposing an Arab identity on multi-ethnic Sudan. tyrants possessing oil). The European Union has been indirectly funding his Labour, Tory and coalition policy on Sudan has been militia through the Khartoum Process, preventing to offer platitudes about human rights, while insisting migrants from the Horn of Africa reaching the Libyan that only through engagement with the regime could coast. the UK influence it. The Foreign and Commonwealth Hence, we should not be surprised that Office did not suggest ‘engagement’ with the Soviet representatives of the EU and Britain wasted no Union or more recently Venezuela). time conferring their blessings on Hemeti when the Bashir’s National Congress Party (formerly the transitional military council ousted Bashir. It is National Islamic Front) was never likely to go quietly. especially nauseating that both the EU and UK issued Its leaders have much to lose, including personal pious statements supporting the will of the Sudanese fortunes amassed through corruption, property and people, a factor that never previously seriously investments in London (several members of Bashir’s concerned them. The EU and the UK have persisted cabinet hold British passports), and their shares in with the Khartoum Process, despite evidence that the Sudanese firms. Janjaweed sell migrants to Libyans who hold them for The faces at the top of the transitional military ransom or sell them as slaves. council may be different, but their intentions remain Throughout Bashir’s bloody rule, the international the same. In summary, nothing will change in Sudan community responded to atrocities by “expressing until everything changes. concern to the authorities”, blandly encouraging the regime to respect human rights. Over the years, the Rebecca Tinsley founded Article1, which helps Sudanese asylum seekers in West declined to apply targeted personal financial the UK. The illustration is by children her team visited in refugee camps in smart sanctions against the architects of the genocide, December, showing the Sudanese army’s action even after UN Security Council approved them. There has never been follow through on any mildly M 17 “WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?” Losing contact with ordinary voters cost Labor an Australian election everyone expected it to win. Steve Yolland reports last year he immediately began building his persona As I write this, just two days after the Australian as an ordinary, knockabout bloke who can knock back election, the sense of shock at the Liberal- a beer and roll up his shirt sleeves to have a go. He National Coalition’s narrow victory over Labor knew the importance of filling in the picture before his is still causing most citizens to mutter, confused: opponents defined him to the public.” “What the actual fuck?” I am not being coarse for By achieving this, Morrison captured the aspiration the sake of effect. That is by far the most common of many working people to not actually be working comment. people, thanks very much, but rather to ascend to It’s not just that there was a widespread sense that comfortable middle class status. the Coalition, victim of recent leadership instability, The Labor Party – with a complex and substantial was long overdue a “pull yourselves together” kicking. “tax and spend” agenda that required endless It was that a Labor victory had been predicted for explanation – appeared mired in the class warfare so long, with “two party preferred” margins as high battles of previous decades, stating, in effect: “We’ll tax as 53-47 in their favour being forecast in usually you what we need and then spend it on you as we see reliable opinion polls as late as the morning of election fit”, to which many Australians clearly said: “Thanks a day, that the eventual win by their opponents was ... lot, I’ll just keep me money and spend it myself”. well, flabbergasting. Stupefying. “Shome mishtake, Whether or not a new Liberal National Coalition shurely?” (Election night in Australia is universally government will actually do anything much to help the accompanied by parties and heavy drinking.) people who switched their votes to them remains to be In its way, this result is just as shocking (and seen – they didn’t expect to win either, so have a very therefore interesting) as the Brexit vote and the sketchy plan for government – but painting Labor as presidential win of Donald Trump. the party of higher taxation was certainly a successful So what produced a result which looks like ending up part of their pitch. as 51-49 outcome in favour of the Coalition and prime It will be a long cold day in hell till a political party minister Scott Morrison, now owners of a wafter thin in Australia again goes into an election promising majority that will theoretically allow them to continue significant tax reform or even tax increases. to hold the Government benches for another three This effect was multiplied by the Labor Party’s years? inability (wary of offending environmentally-aware/ Green voters further south) to enthusiastically support ELECTION TRAGICS the proposed Adani coal mine in regional Queensland. There are many factors and I will try and unpick them The Coalition found it simplicity itself to portray intelligently for the election tragics that make up a Labor as wishy-washy on the mine (which they were) goodly proportion of Liberator’s readers. and by implication, therefore, as wishy-washy on jobs Firstly and most obviously, the Labor leader, Bill for regional people – estimated as maybe as many as Shorten, was an unpopular figure, in part because he 15,000 from Adani alone. This effect was re-doubled by had a history as a dominant and powerful head of the no apparent solution to endlessly rising power prices Australian Council of Trade Unions, which is not an and problems with water supply to regional areas. organisation which spends much of its time cultivating There now no Labor seats left in Queensland north the affection of the middle class centre of Australia of Brisbane. And the “don’t care about jobs” message - where most Australians sit - but also because in hurt Labor in regional New South Wales, too, where Parliament and on TV he exhibited all the natural the impact of Adani was little more than symbolic of charisma of a brick. two very different agendas for Government, but where Ironically a decent, engaging and friendly character Labor was portrayed as having forgotten their core away from the cameras, once they turned on he base in favour of chasing a more ideologically-driven became over-controlled, lecturing, somewhat superior pro-environment vote. and just plain boring. And as he was Labor leader for The scale of the rout is notable. Across Queensland six years, that was a long time to bore people. Coalition candidates in fact polled 57% to Labor’s 43% The recently anointed leader of the Liberal Party, - unheard of margins. by contrast, has been a relentlessly cheerful “ordinary Maybe Manchester United supporters offering to go bloke”, with an ever-present baseball cap perched over to Anfield and cheer on Liverpool so the Kop can on his head, who made no pretence of any great have a day off. intellectual heft, but insisted he had plenty of empathy By running dead on new coal mines and talking up for the ‘battlers’ – Aussies who want a “fair go”, or their climate change credentials, Labor made a bold as they picturesquely put it here, “a fair suck of the attempt to speak to inner city Sydney and seats across saveloy”. left-leaning Victoria in particular, which had delivered As one Liberal insider put it: “When he got the job a massive electoral setback to the Liberals in a recent M 18 state election. those working in the tourism The attempt failed. Although industry in Queensland who the Green vote around the nation “Morrison captured said, in effect, we’d rather have stayed roughly the same at 10.5%, a coal mine than the Barrier blue collar voters were resolutely the aspiration of Reef. unimpressed. many working people This time round, Australia’s It’s not that they don’t care conservative parties portrayed about climate change, it’s just to not actually be themselves as simple-thinking, that they want to care about it straight-talking managers, without paying more tax on a working people, eschewing the internecine second investment home, (often struggles that have consumed called a “bricks and mortar thanks very much, them in recent years (the pension” in Australia), or their Coalition parties have been parents having to give up long- but rather to ascend split between hard right established tax breaks on shares cultural warriors and small-l in their superannuation portfolio. to comfortable liberals, much like in Britain) Ironically in well-to-do Coalition and opted instead for a pitch seats in the centre of cities there middle class status” that they were just a bunch of were small swings to the Greens good old blokes on the side of and even to high-taxing Labor – ‘ordinary’ Aussies – yes, even the so-called ‘doctor’s wives’ effect, where comfortably those who work down coalmines, milk the cows, and for off people dabble in more progressive politics because those – by offering vague and very unlikely promises whatever the outcome it won’t really affect them. But on road building – who are stuck in commuter traffic move into the outer suburban ring and the effect was queues for hours every day. reversed, leading to a clutch of vital Coalition wins in By contrast the Labor Party was simply too overly seats in marginal seats in New South Wales, Victoria intellectual, too long-winded, and they constantly and Tasmania where they should, by all expectations, beetled off down obscurantist paths – all very noble have been swept aside. in their own right, to be sure – without taking care of their knitting. SCARE TACTICS As one radio commentator explained: “I went to see So it is worthwhile considering why the Liberal- the mechanic who works on my car, and I asked him National scare tactics on tax were so effective. who he was going to vote for, and he said Liberal Australians are not, in a general sense, anti-taxation because he didn’t want to lose his tax break on the one in the way that some in America are. It’s not that investment property his family owned. When I told they are selfish. Indeed, Australians donate more per him there was no chance of that, because any change head of population to charity – including to charities to the law meant that existing arrangements were overseas – than any other country in the world. grandfathered, he looked at me and said ‘What the It is rather that they do not trust Government to fuck does Grandfathered mean?’” Quite. spend those taxes wisely. You couldn’t summarise Labor’s failures to explain As part of a growing trend worldwide, Australians their goals any more simply, nor could you sound a are deeply suspicious of Government at all levels, so better warning to the left around the world as they when the Coalition festooned all the polling stations seek to come to terms with the appeal of populist right in the country in bunting – in stark Labour red – with wing heroes. an unflattering photo of Bill Shorten looking, frankly, It’s hard to know exactly what will happen next. confused, with the slogan “Labor: It’s the Bill Australia The Coalition now has a clean slate and the thrill of a can’t afford.” it was highly effective. At no stage totally unexpected win, and they could take the chance did Labor ever manage to convey their contrasting to shift their party back to the centre, (especially as priorities with such devastating and effective former prime minister Tony Abbott, leader of the hard directness. right, lost his seat to an Independent), deliver modest And it was this scenario – starkly similarly to but welcome tax cuts, finally make some progress on Clinton’s shock loss to Trump in America – that led climate change – a notable failure for some years – and one member of the public writing in to a radio station de-fang Labor for a generation. on Sunday morning to dismiss the Labor effort as Labor will retreat and lick their wounds, but they having been led by ‘Hillary Shorten’. You could hear already show little sign of having learned their lesson, the heads nodding in agreement. as their next leader, far from a consensus politician Perhaps the most significant thing about this election from the centre, will very likely be a dyed-in-the- is that it shows, once again, that political parties in the wool tub-thumping leftie. Which will do wonders for western world are no longer either mere vehicles for reviving the spirits of their own members, but very those who traditionally made up their supporter base little for the electorate at large. Sound familiar? or even perfectly aligned to those who they seek to In the meantime, Australians will move on to arguing lead, and especially on the left. about this week’s football, and saying: “Thank God Pennsylvania coal miners voted for Trump. On that’s over for another three years.” Although with a Saturday so did coal miners in the Hunter Valley likely Government majority of just one, they might be in New South Wales and those who want to be coal counting those chickens a tad early. miners in Queensland. Voters in Wales and northern England and the south west voted against their Steve Yolland is a UK Lib Dem resident in Melbourne obvious self-interest for Brexit. On Saturday so did M 19 IT’S MORE THAN MONEY Inequality is not just financial, liberals should tackle unequal power too, says Oliver Craven Many progressives fall into the trap of seeing enterprises involve their staff in decision-making as inequality as purely an issue of money - as they are the ones who encounter the problems and if purely more government spending would must try to find solutions. They value every member be enough to solve all of the ills of the of staff and pay fair, living wages. To bolster these disadvantaged. businesses, we must introduce stronger anti-monopoly Liberals, however, realise that inequality is not laws, and encourage small businesses to take up simply about money, it is an issue of power. Money is contracts from anchor institutions through breaking an integral part of inequality, but any move to fight these up. This would allow smaller businesses to better inequality with government spending will soon be compete with large ones and create stronger links ended if inequality of power is not also fought, as the between business and the local area. rich and powerful pay for the election of sympathetic Finally, along with our commitment to localising politicians. public services, we should create citizen committees Liberals should be against the format of the current in local government covering each service, allowing welfare state regardless of its monetary generosity. users, experts and decision-makers to discuss how The current system maintains a false choice between best to improve the service. This would empower a given job and going hungry. It’s clear that we should users to fight for the best service, aided by ‘small be allowing people to spend their time in a way which l’ liberal councillors. Similarly, liberal councillors they find fulfilling and valuable, whether that is should fight for the formation of community owned starting their own business or caring for relatives. It utilities, following from examples of community bus also fails to perform its role as a safety net, allowing services in West Oxfordshire and community energy in many people to fall through the gaps, left struggling on Nottingham and elsewhere. their own without the support they deserve. It’s clear that the current Liberal Democrat plans When people lack economic security, they become to end poverty and fight inequality do not go far more insular and tribal. This is one of the reasons why enough. Instead of a comprehensive plan to include the we have seen such an uptick in anti-immigration and disadvantaged and marginalised in our communities, anti-EU sentiment since the financial crisis. we find a well-meaning but ineffective solution framed Those who feel threatened are much more likely to to be sold to the concerned middle class. lash out at those who they perceive are a danger to An important step we can make towards this them. This is why it is important for liberals to ensure internally is to make sure our policy-making groups that everyone has a basic level of economic security are representative of all income groups and that they and that everyone has a voice in every part of their are accessible to those on low incomes, rather than lives. forcing people to travel to London to contribute ideas. To maintain that security, it is vital that everyone Simple changes like allowing phone-ins to meetings has a say in all parts of their lives. Many people would do a lot to improve access. It’s also clear that are forced into bad jobs having been given a choice we need a joined-up vision that devolves power to the between work or going hungry. They have little say in people and provides them with the economic security the conditions of their workplace and cannot vote with required to wield it. their feet as they do not know whether they could find other work. To improve people’s lives, we must create Oliver Craven is an activist in Lincoln, Sleaford and North Hykeham Liberal economic security for everyone, give everyone a say at Democrats work and involve people in the provision of the public services they use. I think the only way to lay a foundation of economic security is to provide a Universal Basic Income (UBI). Don’t miss out - read An unconditional income floor is the only way to truly Liberal Democrat Voice provide economic security, as then people can be sure that they will be able to live without worrying about Every day, thousands of people are jumping through bureaucratic hoops. Excluding reading Lib Dem Voice, making it disability and housing costs initially is probably a sensible move to reduce costs and protect those in the most read Liberal Democrat special circumstances. Housing costs could be covered blog. Don’t miss out on our debates, by a universal renter’s income paid for by land value tax, encouraging people to move from areas of high coverage of the party, policy demand to lower demand areas. discussions, links to other greta To give everyone a say at work, we should be content and more. promoting small businesses, new cooperatives and mutuals. The best small businesses and social www.libdemvoice.org M 20 NO CASH FOR SCHOOLS A funding crisis has emerged in education. John Bryant suggests some ways to solve it A lot of assertions are made about education While implementation of the national funding spending these days by both Labour and Tory formula has had delays, other issues have impacted politicians, but to get an accurate picture of school budgets which the Treasury has simply ignored. what has happened in recent years, one needs The number of students in secondary schools is rising to understand how we got to the current crisis. and the spending per pupil has consequently reduced. continues to say that schools have The cash improvements that May robotically repeats never had so much money (which in cash terms is whenever this issue is raised, do not take account of true), yet headteachers are cutting staff and the this demographic change. breadth of the curriculum on offer. Why? Other factors are leading to a perfect storm of misery. The costs being borne by schools are rising well above About 15 years ago, a review of school standards inflation. These include employer national insurance placed London as the worst region. Since then London rates, the apprenticeship levy and superannuation schools have raised their collective performance to costs. The overheads for employing both teachers and make London the best performing region. support staff have risen massively and there are wide A number of factors came together to make this variations in employers’ pension contributions. happen, including that local authorities in the 1990s The national funding formula could never be and early 2000s could fund their education budget at sophisticated enough to take account of such local cost a higher level than the indicative block grant given by pressures. So there is a postcode lottery in allocating central Government. sufficient funding to attract the quality staff that Camden was one of these, where an informal cross- schools need. party agreement existed that stopped all three parties Another new pressure for schools in London, which making political capital out of the schools’ budget at will also impact on other metropolitan areas in time, is council tax-setting meetings. how to offer sufficiently high salaries to retain teaching Camden’s secondary schools’ more generous funding staff. While the School Teachers Pay and Conditions helped stop them seeking academy status when Brent, Document offers some flexibility (and academies next door, had their secondary schools stampeding have the freedom to create their own pay structures), towards academy status to get the additional funding. extortionate housing costs are leading to an exodus of Another factor that helped London improve its young teachers from London because schools cannot schools was the London Challenge. This was a school hope to offer the salaries a teacher would need to buy improvement programme launched in 2003. The policy even smallest flat. document Transforming London Secondary Schools set What should the Liberal Democrat answer be? out its aims to create a step change in performance. Certainly, the national pot needs to be bigger but a The initiative has since been credited by Ofsted and national funding formula is too crude a mechanism others for a significant improvements, and more recent to allocate funding to schools where local costs and studies have identified the London Challenge as one challenges are so different. Labour demand for a factor that contributed to significant enhancements National Education Service fails to understand that in pupil outcomes. One of the key features was the the National Health Service offers wide variations idea of partnership working between schools and local in the availability and quality of patient services authorities, and the availability of ‘national leaders of across the country, and local accountability for these education’ and ‘school improvement partners’ to help variations is still poor. schools improve their practice. A local answer, where councils can opt for their Other factors included the improved leadership in own initiatives paid from funding raised locally, begs education authorities and the diverse nature of the the bigger question on how local taxation requires a school population. Some researchers have attributed major overhaul. Simply tinkering around the edges improving results in London to the ethnicity of pupils, on business rates supplementing council tax is not many of whom came from newly arrived families enough. The Liberal Democrats need to reconsider a whose culture was to encourage their offspring to take local income tax, which would reflect local pay rates all possible opportunities to make progress. and therefore the relative housing costs in an area. One of the lessons that policymakers should take Punishing London for its success by cutting its from the London experience since 2003 is that to raise funding so that the shire counties can have a bit more standards they should try similar initiatives in other of a shrinking pot is not the answer. Levelling funding regions. Of course, that would need funding closer to up for the shires may have its virtue, but levelling London’s levels. London down is a recipe for disaster. But what has happened instead is the Tories’ call for a national funding formula to level the playing field, John Bryant was executive member for children in Camden 2006-08 and as but without any real terms growth in the funding William Tranby is a member of the Liberator Collective pot to bring regional school budgets closer to London levels. M 21 POOR PERFORMANCE Have the Liberal Democrats got anything to say to people in poverty, and would they listen anyway? Geoff Payne sets the scene for this year’s Social Liberal Forum conference

Poverty and Inequality; SLF conference responds (The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone, to the national emergency that is being ignored. by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, 2009i) is that Have you seen the headlines recently? “Shareholders it is much harder to improve social mobility unless you ‘not stopping excessive executive pay’”, “Council have a more equal society to begin with. spending on single homelessness ‘down by £5bn since It is worth considering how important the Spirit 2009’”, “Universal credit to see 1.9m people lose Level is in the equality debate. Some Lib Dems like to more than £1,000 per year, IFS finds”, “Lack of bank define themselves against ‘socialism’ by claiming they account ‘costs £500 extra a year’ in bills”, “‘Deeply are in favour of more inequality as long as the economy irresponsible’: DWP kept ‘alarming’ universal credit is growing and opportunities are increasing. If the findings secret for 18 months”, “Dividend income for poor are getting richer it doesn’t matter if inequality holders of UK shares jumps to record £19.7bn”. increases as the rich get even richer. These all appeared within the last month at the time once famously said: “We are of writing. No doubt there are more dramatic ones to intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich as be found going back further. long as they pay their taxes.” Tackling poverty and inequality ought to be The Spirit Level shows that that on a whole number considered a national emergency. Even the UN is of measurements society is better off where income producing alarming reports about how bad things are inequality is less. Not only are the poor better off, as in the UK. But everything seems to be overshadowed you would expect, but counter intuitively the rich also, by Brexit. And of course these issues are not unrelated. if not in terms of personal wealth then certainly by As far as the Social Liberal Forum (SLF) is concerned other quality of life measurements. matters such as these are fundamentally why we exist, and so our annual conference in London on 20 July will POLITICALLY EXPLOSIVE be about how Liberals should tackle inequality. This is politically explosive and there is no shortage You can visit our website and sign up here, places of politically motivated think tanks and right wing are limited to 200; https://www.socialliberal.net/ politicians who seek to discredit it. slfconference. So what now? The theme for our conference is We booked this date a long time ago, and we now Freedom from Poverty, a phrase many of you know that the leadership election campaign will be will recognise from the preamble of the Lib Dem over on this date and the election results announced on constitution which defines what a Liberal Democrat the following Monday. believes in. The party has moved on from the coalition, The reputation of the Liberal/Liberal Democrat party but not everyone is convinced. has varied over the years. From the great heights of How do the Liberal Democrats reassert themselves the 1909 People’s budget, Keynsian economics and the as the party that wants freedom from poverty? Beveridge report on the one hand, to our recent record We were interested to see that earlier this year in coalition on the other. It is of course the latter that Jo Swinson had set up a commission to look at is fresh in most people’s minds. the impact of new technology. We hope to get During the Coalition the argument from the Lib Dem someone from this commission to speak about leadership was that we should prioritise increasing this (unfortunately Jo cannot make it). The role of social mobility as the best way to tackle poverty. It disruptive technology”suggests that many jobs will was put that if we think in these terms we can be far disappear - many already have, and this could lead to more ambitious than what Nick Clegg described as the far greater inequality. Some have argued that this is “poverty plus a pound” approach of the Left. a good reason to introduce the universal basic income Of course the Tories were not interested from an as a way of compensating for the lack on employment ideological point of view in reducing inequality and so opportunities. This is undoubtably a complicated we have this curious combination of some good policies argument but also an essential one that needs to be like the pupil premium to promote social mobility, and raised. some really awful ones such as the bedroom tax and We are always on the lookout for a green perspective the benefit cap that have made poor people poorer and on our conferences and there is no doubt climate some destitute. breakdown will have a huge impact on our future. The sad reality was that the Lib Dems were half The main priority is to try to mitigate and stop it hearted about tackling poverty and inequality apart but unless or until we do the political fallout will be from a small number of principled MPs who voted highly significant. The advances in green technologies against some of the welfare cuts. We now know that are very exciting but the big question is, are they there was no great change in social mobility during the happening quickly enough to allow us to have a coalition, and one of the key findings of the Spirit Level sustainable future? M 22 In the meantime green issues appear to be very much years. The Liberal Democrats have been very good at a middle class concern, the green lifestyle appears exploiting Labour divisions on Brexit, but we are not on the face of it to involve spending a lot of money up immune to their travails. Generally speaking those front to, for example, save energy, but which in the on low incomes are more likely to support Brexit. The longer term will benefit those on lower incomes more. very people that we as Social Liberals want to help, it But even more concerning problems around resource seems like we are barely on speaking terms with. This depletion and pollution are pushing people to migrate has to be a major concern. from poorer countries into the EU and US where we We also need to consider the fragmentation of British are seeing a right wing backlash. So although the politics and where the Lib Dems fit in after the local centre left takes the issue more seriously, currently it and European elections. Just two years ago it seemed is the radical right who are benefitting. after the general election we had returned to two party We are delighted to announce that Ed Davey will politics, but now we see the remarkable drop in Labour give our keynote Beveridge Memorial lecture on and Tory support, the rise of Brexit, the Lib Dems and Decarbonating Capitalism and Reducing Poverty. Ed Greens, and the likely rethink for Change UK after Davey was the Lib Dem secretary of state for energy their incendiary “we’ll be friendly towards your (Lib and climate change 2012-15. In 2013, he set up the Dem) face whilst we stab you in the back” strategy Green Growth Group, bringing together environmental memo was leaked. and climate ministers from across the European Union So there is plenty to talk about and hard to cover in an effort to promote investment in important green everything in this article. Please come along and join technologies. the debates about our future. It is hard to ignore Brexit of course. This will not be the main theme of the conference but Brexit will Geoff Payne is the organiser of the Social Liberal Forum conference undoubtably dominate the political landscape for many

FREEDOM FROM POVERTY

Social Liberal Forum Conference 2019

Saturday 20 July 2019 at Resource For London

Ed Davey MP will deliver this year’s Beveridge Memorial Lecture “Climate Justice - How to Decarbonise Capitalism and Tackle Poverty”

Our speakers include: Ian Kearns, Naomi Smith and William Wallace. More will follow.

Book Online: socialliberal.net/slfconference #SLFConf

“Liberty without equality is a name of noble sound and squalid result” – L.T. Hobhouse, 1911.

M 23 IT WASN’T JUST BREXIT Howard Sykes looks at how local election success set up the European election results, and even got some national help

The May local elections saw a great set extra seats have helped strengthen our position as the of results for us with an increase of more than third largest grouping (we had sunk to fourth behind 700 councillors. We now have over 2,500 Liberal the Independents during the coalition government). Democrat councillors across the country. We also gained seats in Labour’s so called northern Everyone played a vital part from fighting a heartlands, including Sunderland, Sheffield, target seat to standing as a ‘paperless’ candidate Manchester, Liverpool and Barnsley. to increase our overall vote share. Bit by bit we are chipping away at Labour’s one-party It could have been even better, with more seats and states; a great example of this is returning our first councils, if the party had really got behind the local councillor to Wakefield for a generation. elections as some of us repeatedly urged in 2018 and I wrote in Liberator 394 that while Brexit early 2019 (Liberator 394). Vince Cable, to be fair, was undoubtedly would have an impact on our fortunes, very supportive. good local campaigns in strongly ‘leave’ areas During May, the list has been growing daily and could still punch through and be successful, helped we now lead or have the deputy leadership in more sometimes by crass administrations. Not being in than 47 local authorities – more than doubling of the government nationally or locally helped in many of the number of Liberal Democrats in leadership roles. places we gained. And where we are in government We gained majority control of 12 new councils: North locally, we had proven ourselves as community Norfolk, Chelmsford, South Somerset, Somerset leaders, protecting front lines services at the same West & Taunton, Cotswold, Hinckley & Bosworth, time as delivering value for money and caring for Teignbridge, Vale of White Horse, Winchester, Mole the most in need. Valley, Bath & North East Somerset and North Devon. Our success also set the stage very nicely for at the We have our youngest council leader in Joe Harris European Parliament elections just weeks later. in the Cotswolds, and a record number of women Six of the party’s new MEPs are also council leaders. This includes Vikki Slade (at the new councillors (Luisa Porritt, Bill Newton-Dunn, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council), and Shaffaq Mohammed, Lucy Nethsingha, Antony Hook there are at least three LGBT council leaders and the and Jane Brophy) – showing how strong the local inspiring Steve Darling in Torbay. government link is in our party. All are welcome additions to the Liberal Democrat The Liberal Democrat local government family is local government family. where the fight back started, and we have produced The icing on the cake for me was taking control some great campaigners. of Bath & North East Somerset, where Jacob Rees- The next stage is to keep fighting for a good level Mogg now has a Liberal Democrat councillor of recognition for local government by the party We reinforced our control of Three Rivers, Eastleigh, nationally. I commented in Liberator 394 that local and Watford. We also saw Dave Hodgson re-elected government was getting too low a profile from Liberal Mayor of Bedford, with an increase in our number of Democrat HQ. While this did get better to a degree, councillors on Bedford as well. there is still much room for improvement. You may recall that Dave’s result in 2015, winning Following Vince stepping down, the leadership when so many other places were defeated, setting a election gives us an excellent chance to press the local great example for local campaigners. We are now government case. the largest group on the council as well as holding Liberator readers who want to support Liberal the elected mayoralty. Democrats in local government can ask candidates how Of course, this doesn’t include the places where they would use their position to support us. we have formed ‘partnership’ administrations, like Ask them what their plans are to help raise the Eden, Mendip, North Somerset, Guildford, South profile for local government within the party and Oxfordshire, Burnley and York. encourage people – in good time – to put their names Don’t underestimate how difficult putting together a forward for election to their local councils. partnership can be, I know this from my time as leader Ask the candidates for leadership what else they of Oldham. would do to help ALDC, local councillors and local Areas which have been true blue Tory crumbled government. Will they pledge the cash and freedoms, overnight, meaning a large amount of extra work so we can do the job people elected us to do? coming in for both the LGA, the Liberal Democrat Two sets of good election results – been a long, long group office and the team of experienced councillors time since we had that. I am still smiling and I hope who work tirelessly to offer advice and support you are. to Liberal Democrats who have suddenly found themselves part of new administrations after being in Howard Sykes is leader of the Local Government Association Liberal Democrat opposition for many years. Group It’s been a nice problem to have. Inside the LGA the M 24 A TALE OF TWO BY- At the time of his death in on in the local working men’s clubs December 2017, Bill was writing and in the trade unions so that it ELECTIONS his memoirs on this subject - I became acceptable to vote Liberal Dear Liberator don’t know how far he got but when it was never acceptable to vote I was very interested to read he sought the views of all of us Conservative. Mark Smulian’s article on the who were involved at the time. Our slogan at our first TIGers in Liberator 395, and A slide show on the Croydon NW parliamentary election - which I relating this back to the SDP- by-election was shown at Bill’s would regard as too simplistic to use Liberal Alliance experience. funeral, and his widow Janet spoke now - was “Liberal - the only way In 1981 I was on the movingly how he was treated by Left”. Is was this emphasis on the management committee of the party elite at the time, who radicalism of Liberalism and the Croydon North West Liberals, saw him as a thorn in the SDP- ‘establishment’ nature of Labour, when a by-election opportunity Liberal Alliance ambitions. which underpinned our electoral presented itself. We fully expected Jill Whitehead success and, ironically, helped in our our existing PPC and local man, Sutton downfall when the party nationally Bill Pitt to be the candidate. But embraced ex-Labour worthies in we were told by the party that Bill the Alliance and thereafter in the should step aside, and make way TARGET PRACTICE merged party. for Shirley Williams and the SDP Dear Liberator I really do not believe that Chris instead. Chris Davies (Liberator 395) Davies or other supporters of Naturally, we fought this all the rightly identifies the electoral targeting really appreciate the way, giving Bill our full support, system as the main cause of depths of the current situation. We and after considerable heated the need for targeting. OK, no lost 375 deposits at the 2017 election; discussions with the party elite, we argument, let’s accept that. We’ve at the 1950 election, which was eventually got our way, and Bill known it and have been fighting it regarded as a disaster, we would became the candidate and then the as a party for over a century. We have lost this in precisely 24 seats at elected MP. have not succeeded and first-past- the present 5% level. However, after he was elected, the-post is still there. Now what? I have hitherto always supported I am not sure the national party Is Chris Davies really saying that the ‘broad front’ strategy and of (now subsumed under the Liberal- targeting needs to be focussed only fighting every seat. I now doubt it. SDP Alliance) gave the seat its full on the electoral system? Surely What is the benefit of polling 1%, attention. not. We have to win under the 2% or 3% in a seat and seeing the Shirley Williams then went present electoral system. great cause of Liberalism trounced in onto win Crosby, by which time I agree with Chris that it is not such a way? I now believe that it is Croydon NW had been all but easy. In West Leeds we had to shameful to have a candidate unless forgotten. We did get support of go from a lost deposit in 1966 to at least one piece of literature is a kind in the 1982 local elections winning the first city council seats delivered to every house, whether by - including initially an organiser for 30 years in 1968, to winning hand or in the freepost. with rural experience, when the parliamentary seat from Finally, Chris stresses the use of we were a London suburban Labour in 1983. Done without financial resources. If his concern area. But the gains in voting any targeting assistance from the is only on the provision of finance intention we made were wiped out party. to target seats, I am totally in when sank the Certainly we had extra support. Have as much cash as you Belgrano a week before polling day assistance from outside West need. We never received a single in May 1982. Mrs Thatcher went Leeds but never at the cost of penny in West Leeds from the party, on to benefit from the Falklands what colleagues were doing in even after we had won, We had no War, and in the general election of their own seats. We saw activity professional presence in West Leeds 1983, Bill lost his seat. and its public profile elsewhere as until the Rowntree Reform Trust - There are clear lessons for today contributing to our efforts, both by not the party - provided a modicum in all of this - party elites are not being seen on the ground and in of funds for an agent just one year good at taking local needs into the media, and in keeping Labour away from the 1987 election. My account, by-election wins need occupied in other seats rather than objection to targeting is its deliberate to be built on to ensure future descending on us. prevention of activity in non-target success, and partners in alliances The point is that our success was seats. This has happened with may have their own agendas, not built on mindless activism but disastrous results and is still going which may not necessarily match by building political activity on to on. The recent local election results your own. local campaigning. We took Labour were certainly encouraging but we M 25 should not be deceived by our own tactic. Strong local parties with Enemies and publicity. With some rare splendid constituencies given target status exceptions, the results in Labour press for help from surrounding Neighbours: seats, particularly in northern weaker areas. But if that sucks Arabs and Jews industrial cities were still grim, activists in without being a two- in Palestine and and breaking out from the current way process, the strong areas can handful of wards will be a very long find the supply of neighbouring Israel, 1917-2017 task. helpers dries up. There are many By Ian Black The microcosm of Leeds is reasons why it helps a target Penguin 2018 salutary. We hold just three wards constituency to be surrounded £10.99 out of 33, none of them in the by constituencies which, while inner city, in which the revival not yet winnable, are active. So The centenary of the in the late 1960s started. There the strategy should provide for Balfour Declaration in is no other ward where we are the strong constituency giving 2017 (which was also the closer than 2,000 votes to winning. whatever help is most needed to the fiftieth anniversary of the In Horsforth, in which we have weaker. 1967 war and start of the previously had representation from In my county of Essex, we’ve just occupation) showed the the early 1960s we were third, taken control of one council and Israeli/Palestinian conflict 2,000 votes adrift. This ward is in lead the administration in another. as far from resolution as the Pudsey constituency in which But five districts, boroughs or ever. With bloody civil wars in 2017 there was merely a paper unitaries have no Liberal Democrat in neighbouring Syria and candidate. He polled just 3.26%. councillors at all though most did in Yemen, and the constant It is simply impossible to leap have within the last 20 years: danger that they might from that figure to winning a most border on a strong area. In erupt in some other Middle ward which is a quarter of the most, there is no near prospect of Eastern states, the problem constituency. In effect that winning. of Israel and Palestine now previously solid Liberal ward was The focus at county and regional receives less attention than written off in the vain interests level is increasingly on both ends it once did. Many people even of targeting. It is time to end the of the spectrum – the winnables ask why we should care. strategy. and the struggling – but perhaps An obvious answer to that Michael Meadowcroft there is a need for more help at question is that to turn our Leeds the lower end if the local party backs would be a denial of can be persuaded it can advance. our common humanity. Yet it Otherwise, the work from the mid- is also short-sighted in terms TARGET PRACTICE of our own, purely selfish, Dear Liberator 1970s through to the mid-1990s to build a genuine Britain-wide interests which desperately It’s a pity if the exchange between require this problem to be Michael Meadowcroft (Liberator presence will have been wasted. Every region and county should sorted out. 394) and Chris Davies (Liberator We would do well to 395) doesn’t go beyond “Targeting be active helping the weak get stronger. remember how the original is bad – no, targeting is good!”. failure to provide justice Michael makes some important If a system of assessing target seats by ambition and activity for the Palestinians lies points, but few of us would argue firmly at Britain’s door. against some kind of targeting. In a as well as vote last time is resurrected, a criterion could well Since Britain ran away from weak, struggling and directionless its mandate in 1948, that local party, what needs doing? Pick be whether help is going both ways. Simon Banks injustice has been allowed a ward and work it. That’s how to fester. This has led to Liberals built up from back in the Chair, Essex Liberal Democrats County Co-ordinating Committee resentment and hatred of 1970s. It’s a form of targeting. In the West which have become 2010, I hear, Oxford West was lost major causes of jihadism. partly because activists were moved Siddharta Dhar, the British to Oxford East, wrongly believing it citizen and ISIS member could be won. A failure of targeting. known as the second ‘Jihadi But Chris’ tale of how his John’ revelled in producing constituency lifted itself to target video nasties of himself status is dated. Since 1997, hardly executing Western hostages any constituencies have followed with a carving knife. He this route while many have also dreamed of liberating gone the other way. Our current the Old City of Jerusalem. parliamentary targets, bar perhaps So did Ayatollah Khomeini South Cambridgeshire, have been (who spurred on the troops targets for a long while. In that during the Iran-Iraq war by time, as Michael says, many areas proclaiming that “the road surrounding target constituencies to Jerusalem lies through have declined. Baghdad”) and Osama bin A targeting strategy needs Laden (who asserted that to be just that, not a targeting it was a duty incumbent on M 26 every Muslim to liberate both the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and the Al-Haram al-Sharif in Mecca). Do not say that we have not been warned. Yet how can peace be brought to Israelis and Palestinians? The first step is to develop empathy for each side. As Middle East editor of until 2016, Ian Black reported from Israel and the read this book. He shows that it is Emma Sky was a UK Palestinian territories for decades. not. The same applies even more to civilian administrator in Iraq With a very good knowledge of those who hesitate to venture out of and Afghanistan, and her both Arabic and Hebrew, he is well their own echo chamber and have understanding of the underlying placed to help the reader develop never listened properly to the voice issues, as well as her access to that empathy. of the other side. informed local actors, is impressive. He does this brilliantly in this Once there is empathy for both In a Time of Monsters follows book, which covers the political sides, it becomes possible to The Unravelling, her devastating history of Palestine during the appreciate the rights, obligations book about the mess made by the hundred years after the Balfour and aspirations of each of them coalition in Iraq and Afghanistan. Declaration, showing the failures of as these are expressed in terms She is insightful and subtle when the various attempts to reach peace. of international law and human writing about Iraq and Syria: but Its great strength is that the rights. her attempts to summarise events author looks at the conflict from Black concludes the book by throughout the region after the the viewpoints of individual examining the various options for Arab Spring are less successful. Palestinians and Israelis, as peace, which seems depressingly If you are concerned by jihadism, well as the political movers and distant in the era of Trump. He terrorism and the waves of shakers. By bringing the story succinctly sums up the debate migration that they have provoked alive through telling us about the about a ‘one state’ and a ‘two state’ (and will continue to provoke, memoirs, poems, films, novels, solution and implicitly opts for the since the root causes remain plays, TV shows, journalism and latter. Unsurprisingly, and since unaddressed) then start with Sky’s political speeches Israelis and publishing the book, he has recently earlier book, and buy this current Palestinians have produced in called for British recognition of the tome when it arrives in paperback their own languages, he shows us State of Palestine. That is where an for her chapters on Iraq and Syria. how the situation they each faced appreciation of the rights of each Rebecca Tinsley turned them into the peoples they party in international law should are today, and how conflict with logically lead us. ‘the other’ moulded their national Enemies and Neighbours is said to identity. That is the essence of the have been well received by Israelis tragedy. and Palestinians alike. If this is The book is divided into 26 so, then perhaps there are a few chapters with an introduction that glimmers of hope for the future. provides the background from 1882 Read it. onwards as well as an epilogue. John McHugo The chapters have no names except for the dates they cover. Years in In a Time of Monsters: which crucial developments occur (1917, 1967, 1987) have their Travels through the own chapter, while others cover Middle East in Revolt rather longer periods. The result By Emma Sky is a straightforward chronological narrative divided up into bite-size Atlantic Books, £17.99 chunks. It is easy to read, and This survey of the Arab Spring Black ensures that the focus is and its dismal aftermath makes never lost and that each chapter uncomfortable reading for anyone segues easily into the next. Many who is sentimental about Barack readers will find it a page turner. Obama’s legacy, or thinks Joe Biden He does not strive for some would make a good president. theoretical neutrality, but simply With their muddled and unfolds the truth, warts and all, irresponsible approach to the before the reader’s eyes, objectively Middle East, following on George highlighting uncomfortable and W Bush’s disastrous policies, they inconvenient little details with paved the way for the current forensic skill. Those who say that situation, in which Iran, Turkey the conflict between Israelis and and Russia are the winners; the Palestinians is just too complicated people of the region most certainly for outsiders to understand should are not. M 27 A journalist rings to ask Monday what I think of this modern The bells of St Asquith’s tactic of poring milkshakes long ago chimed midnight, over far-right politicians. I but no one shows any sign reply that the milkshake is of going home. I am writing Lord an American import we could these lines in the Green well do without and that if Ballroom here at the Hall one is going to dispose of it as my European elections then tipping it over a passing celebration party takes place Fascist seems as good a way around me. Bonkers’ as any. A cheer goes up. Chris Warming to my theme, I Davies and Jane Brophy are recall that I was once obliged returned in the North West. to sit next to Oswald Mosley Another cheer. Caroline at dinner. Things were Voaden and Martin Horwood Diary distinctly frosty between us are home in the South West. from the get-go and when he Then a bicyclist arrives from made a disobliging remark Kettering, where the East about Herbert Samuel I Midlands account is being conducted, with the welcome tipped my knickerbocker glory over his head. This soon news that Joan Hunter Dunn is back in the European became a fashion, and many of the fellows who stopped Parliament. Mosley’s gallop at Cable Street were armed with the Freddie and Fiona are here, wrapped in blankets with things, though if I am honest their tendency to melt made their feet in mustard baths. Even so, I fear they have them an unreliable weapon. each caught a cold after their soaking in church yesterday Mind you, as I told the Manchester Guardian at the morning. time, if it had been one of Cook’s trifles I should not have “I have been talking to Chuka, and he is very wasted it on a specimen like Mosley. interested in a pact with the Liberal Democrats,” says Fiona. “Obviously, we’d be the senior party.” Thursday “Chuka?” I ask. What a pleasure it was knocking up today! Our slogan “Umunna!” ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ has quite swept the country and at “Bless you,” I reply. cottage door after cottage door it is uttered spontaneously Of course, you now want to know how the two of them by the voters. came to be soaked at Holy Communion yesterday… No doubt you will want to know how the party came to adopt it. It all happened one evening in the Bonkers’ Sunday Arms as we were setting the world to rights. Meadowcroft I am not afraid to say I blubbed when I watched the was late arriving, and when he did turn up I greeted fire at Notre Dame, but I soon recovered myself and him with “Good man! We have just got on to Brexit.” ordered precautions to be taken at St Asquith’s. The Revd There came the reply “Bollocks to Brexit: trimming that Hughes was sprayed with fire-retardant chemicals and a plumbago has brought on my lumbago.” I jotted down party of Well-Behaved Orphans, armed with buckets of his comment on a Smithson & Greaves beermat and water, has been stationed in the rafters at every service. telephoned London first thing the following morning. This morning, just as the Revd Hughes was giving it both barrels, the orphans rose as one child and tipped Wednesday their buckets over Freddie and Fiona in the front pew. Being firmly convinced that Corbyn is a Conservative The padre was furious, but I defended them as I could agent working to bring down the Labour Party, I seldom have sworn I saw a wisp of smoke rising from that pay much attention to his views. I was, however, grateful quarter of the church myself. to him for bringing my old friend J.A. Hobson back into Now you want to know what Freddie and Fiona were the headlines. It has to be said that Hobson’s views doing in these parts, which means I have to tell you what on the Jewish race made him a prime candidate for happened on Saturday. Writing a diary backwards in this the knickerbocker glory treatment, a fact that Corbyn manner is strictly against the Diarists’ Code – I believe conveniently ignored, but he was Sound on economics – I it was drawn up by Pepys himself – and I will be in the rather think Leicestershire’s invasion of Rutland bore out most awful trouble if the Union finds out, so don’t breathe his analysis of Imperialism. I send a postcard to Corbyn a word. suggesting he also write forewords to Graham Wallas and Saturday L.T. Hobhouse, as they could also do with a boost. Who should I meet at breakfast but Freddie and Fiona? Tuesday It transpires that I have invited them for the weekend, A couple of excitable fellows surprise me at my lodge though I cannot remember doing so. I am reminded of gates. “Is it true you are extremely old and travel with the day I set the dogs on what I took to be a poacher, companions fighting evil?” asks one and I reply that he only to find he was the leader of the Portuguese Liberals has put it rather well. “And did you once hold a meeting whom I had brought here to stay after meeting him at the of the whole parliamentary Liberal Party in your . telephone box?” asks the other. When I admit that this Be that as it may, the two of them are full of their is indeed the case, they exclaim together “I knew it!” and new party. It is called Change UK – at least they tell me rush off. it was last time they checked. They plan to “replace the Anxious to point out that the party was at a low ebb Liberal Democrats”, if you please, because we are too at the time and that this was a telephone box of my own associated with austerity. I hasten to change the subject design that also included a library, billiard room and an and ask them if Jeremy Browne’s scheme for selling the offset litho machine for printing Focus leaflets, I call after unemployed to an offshore bank, developed while they them “The box is much bigger inside than it seems from worked for him, came to anything. They go rather quiet the outside!” They punch the air and dance with glee. after that. Then, fearing for their immortal souls, I urge them to attend St Asquith’s the next day. Lord Bonkers, who was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10, opened Friday his diary to Jonathan Calder M 28