Saturday 28th September 2024 NATIONAL REJOIN MARCH LONDON Park Lane, London 1pm: March Sets Off Parliament Square, 3pm, Rally Starts 4.30pm, Estimated End Time A legal, peaceful, fun and family friendly march and rally through iconic parts of London, starting at Park Lane and ending with a pro stage and excellent speakers (TBA) at the dynamic and modern Rally on Parliament Square. With our third annual event, our aim is to get the attention of the media and politicians to put #RejoinEU on the agenda, and then keep it there until we're back where we belong...in the EU. Since the end of World War 2, European countries coming together politically and economically has worked to keep the peace. We want to ensure that continues for our future generations, the ones who never got to vote in 2016 and now want to be heard! So come and join us on Saturday 28th September 2024 in London and be a part of history!
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'.
The Liberal Democrats are committed to transforming maternal and neonatal care and ensuring inclusive care for all, so we can create a safer, more compassionate healthcare system for everyone.
Our market system should balance businesses’ needs and the rights and freedoms of workers.
The last ten days have been immensely difficult for our country.
