Power shared, not hoarded: finishing the argumentRoz Savage's piece earlier this week, and Jack Meredith's response to it, have done something worth building on. This is an attempt to follow the logic a few steps further, because I think it leads somewhere important. The strongest thing in Savage's piece is the power axis. "Power hoarded versus power shared" is not just better messaging than left versus right. It's a more honest description of what's actually happening in Britain. Decisions that shape people's lives are made in places they can't reach, by institutions they didn't choose, in processes they can't scrutinise. That's a liberal problem, not just ... (more) |
Mark Twain explains the Fall of ManEmbed from Getty ImagesMark Twain never said or wrote many of the quotations ascribed to him, but this one is kosher. It's the epigraph to chapter 2 of his The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson: Adam was but human - this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent. (more) |
Has the Home Secretary got it wrong on immigration?The Guardian has an interesting editorial on home secretary, Shabana Mahmood's plans to make it harder for migrants to gain settled status by extending the wait from five to 10 years. They say that extending settlement waits risks deepening labour shortages while misreading public concern about migration's economic and demographic realities: Ms Mahmood argues that Denmark's Social Democrats curbed inflows to protect the welfare state and won at the ballot box. A general election in Denmark later this month will test whether that policy remains popular. Her recent visit to Copenhagen kept the spotlight on asylum, the most politically charged ... (more) |
On New Year's Eve 1892 Saddington played Kibworth at cricket on a frozen reservoirHere's a another story I discovered when I visited Kibworth Library last week. This report is from the Market Harborough Advertiser and Midland Mail (3 January 1893), but the story appeared in newspapers across the country. A Novel Cricket Match. Saddington v. Kibworth Teams representing the respective cricket clubs of Saddington and Kibworth, met in an extremely novel encounter on Saddington reservoir on Saturday, when an amusing match on the ice ended in a draw. The match was played on skates, and the ice being in splendid condition, the leather hunting was very considerable, and consequently there were many boundaries ... (more) |
A democratic case for public ownership of utilitiesBritain has spent the last few decades running a national experiment. We have taken essential infrastructure that behaves like a monopoly, we put it in private hands, and we hope competition somehow emerges. I can't blame the utilities executives. They got lucky and landed the utilities in the 80s, like some awful game of Monopoly we still pay for. No risk and all reward, what a deal! The results are familiar to anyone who has navigated unreliable rail services or warned their children of the dangers of swimming in the sea that was safe in their childhood. When a market ... (more) |
Towards a third way - a reformed, liberal Palestinian partyWhen I welcomed a delegation of British Liberal Democrats to Jerusalem and Ramallah last week, led by Gavin Stollar OBE and the Party's Foreign Affairs lead, Calum Miller MP, I was reminded that politics, at its best, is not a transaction but a relationship. It is built on trust, curiosity and, above all, friendship. In a region where suspicion is often the default setting, the simple act of sitting together – listening, disagreeing respectfully, and breaking bread – can itself feel radical. Our conversations were frank. They were searching. They were, at moments, uncomfortable. And they were deeply encouraging. I ... (more) |
Mercia rediscovered: The Synod of Gumley and Brixworth churchReviewing Max Adams's The Mercian Chronicles: King Offa and the Birth of the Anglo-Saxon State AD 630-918 for the London Review of Books, Tom Shippey wrote of the difficulty in recovering the history of the kingdom of Mercia: Adams's title is deliberately ironic. There are no 'Mercian Chronicles', the fact of which has caused historians headaches for centuries. For Northumbria we have Bede's History of the English Church and People, written in Jarrow and finished in 731. For Wessex we have The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, first compiled under the aegis of King Ælfred in the 890s, but including much earlier information ... (more) |
Electoral Commission to get full independence back after welcome government U-turnThe latest edition of my email newsletter about work in Parliament, A Lord's Eye View, is out and you can also read it in full below. But if you'd like to get future editions emailed direct to you as soon as they are published, sign up now: Another update from Parliament, sooner than expected as there was a welcome bit of news last night as the House of Commons debated the Representation of the People Bill. Electoral Commission's independence to be fully restored When a Conservative government curbed the Electoral Commission's independence by taking on the power to set a ... (more) |
Not left, not right; pluralist: a response to Roz Savage MPRoz Savage is right that "left" and "right" are poor maps for modern politics. Her alternative axes, especially "power hoarded vs power shared", are a better guide to what voters feel in daily life. But there is a risk in the slogan "Not left. Not right. Liberal." It is excellent as outward-facing messaging; it is incomplete as a description of our party. The Liberal Democrats are not a single ideological bloc. We are a coalition, intentionally, and that breadth is a feature, not a bug. We were formed through a fusion of liberal and social democratic traditions, and our constitution ... (more) |
The Joy of Six 1483Taylor Lorenz argues that there is little evidence that social media is driving a mental health crisis among young people and a banning them from it would effect us all: "Removing anonymity from the web, which will inevitably happen when tech companies are required to identify and ban children, allows for easier government tracking and censorship of journalists, activists and whistleblowers, who rely on online anonymity." Opponents of traffic-reduction measures in cities sometimes claim that such policies discriminate against people with disabilities because they need cars to get about. In reality, Julia Métraux finds, walkable communities are good for them ... (more) |