A news release from the Liberal Democrats brings this excellent news about Daisy Cooper: Liberal Democrat Leader Tim Farron and President Sal Brinton have appointed Daisy Cooper as the party's Candidate Diversity Champion, to drive forward and coordinate the party's action plan to improve the diversity of its MPs.
A Lib Dem gain again from the Tories this week and great to see a full set of Liberal Democrat candidates in this week's set of nine principal local authority by-elections. Elsewhere, it was a case of a couple of solid Lib Dem holds up in the north west, but otherwise the sort of widespread low vote shares in many wards which show how much there is still to do for the Liberal Democrats to recover.
Liberal Youth are campaigning to save the Erasmus exchange programme in future Brexit negotiations. This week they are running a competition to send a group of campaigners to the European Parliament 7th-8th November. Former Erasmus exchange students and exchange programme hopefuls are invited to share their stories as part of a video montage. MEP Catherine Bearder will invite a group to present a Save Erasmus petition in Brussels. The deadline for entries is midnight 18th October. Find out more here.
In writing about the Liberal Democrat recruitment for a Head of Digital Content, I pointed out that nearly every Lib Dem digital channel is run independently of HQ - and that should determine HQ's own approach. Running the channels it is responsible for is necessary, but the smart strategy involves working with the huge number of other channels too. It's not only that there are, literally, hundreds of channels around the country run by volunteers for each official channel from federal party HQ in London. It's also that the audiences for all those other channels rapidly add up to being a significant player in total compared to the national channels.
Every time I say something liberal about immigration or immigrants, people swarm to tell me that I'm being silly and idealistic and we have to respect people's genuine, legitimate concerns. Since they rarely say "these are my concerns" - there's a lot of hand-waving and a lot of pre-emptive defensiveness about how not-racist they are - it's difficult to figure out sometimes what the concerns are.
Nick Clegg's account of the coalition and its aftermath is an insightful and in many places startlingly frank account. This is not a complete review, though do buy and read the book for yourself, but I'll pick up a few of the issues raised. Nick devotes a chapter to "the plumage of power" - looking at how a government anchored in the centre ground by Liberal Democrats ended up appearing from the outside merely to be run by unusually moderate Conservatives. One aspect of this was being seen with the trappings of power. The value was understood all along by Conservatives - because they live for this sort of thing. Speaking at the door of number 10, etc. There's a fascinating contrast between the coalition DPM who had a veto on government policy but no real visible trappings - and, say, the US Vice President who is well adorned with plumage, but whose powers are 'not worth a bucket of warm spit'.
We are committed to tackling the challenges facing our music industry head-on. By doing so, we can maintain the UK’s reputation as a global leader in music, while giving future generations the chance to share in its success.
The Liberal Democrats are committed to rebuilding the trust and compassion that the UK was once known for. We believe that our country has a responsibility to support those in need, no matter where they are in the world.
For too long, years of neglect and mismanagement by the previous Conservative Government have pushed our prison system into a deep crisis.
