Let's travel far from Brighton and the Liberal Democrats's autumn conference to an hour-long discussion of Christopher Hill's The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution, a book published in 1972. I read it just after I had taken A-level History and found it more interesting than anything I had read about the 17th century while studying for that. Somehow it fitted together with Jethro Tull's album Songs From the Wood to form a ruralist, traditionalist strand in my politics that I have never quite been able to expunge. If Hill was a revisionist historian then Ann ...
Here is the full text of Ed Davey's closing speech at the 2026 Liberal Democrat autumn conference in Brighton: Something big and dangerous is happening in our country. Hundreds of thugs, in black shirts and balaclavas, are marching on our streets. First Dover. Then Portsmouth. Their aim? To intimidate. To spread fear. To stoke racism. They may call themselves patriots, but they would tear our country apart. We must not let them. Conference, we have seen this before. Racism on Britain's streets is sadly nothing new. Even though the vast majority of our fellow citizens share our values of decency, ...
BBC News wins our Headline of the Day Award. The councillor is Christian Vassie, a Liberal Democrat member of City of York Council, and the sign has gone up in the village of Wheldrake. Britain's hedgehogs salute him.
"Later he announced that the party are now in favour of cutting fuel duty by 10p, a policy that has not been agreed by conference and one that flies in the face of our commitment to tackling climate change. The Deputy Leader, Daisy Cooper also launched a new economic policy in her speech, which, once I had got hold of it, appears to be largely sensible, however, that too has not been approved by conference and it also talks about tax cuts."Peter Black reports from the Liberal Democrats' autumn conference in Brighton. George Monbiot asks why lawbreaking on our roads ...
Yesterday afternoon, Lib Dem Conference passed a motion calling for the EHRC's Code of Practice to be withdrawn and for work to be done on a cross party basis to work out what changes in the law were necessary to ensure that everyone, women, trans people, everyone can go about their lives in dignity and safety. It is not beyond the wit of people to find a way of doing that, and it is something that can be relatively easy given the political will. The motion was passed overwhelmingly, as these things usually are. In fact, it looked to me ...
I tried telling the old boy that the Port of Dover has its own police force, whose relations with the Kent force has at times been opaque, but he was determined to give it both barrels this time. Saturday I am disgusted at the events in Dover. We used to know how to deal with these Blackshirt types - come to think of it, I believe there's still a Wellington bomber in an outbuilding of some farm or other on my estate. I shall have it serviced, repainted and put at the disposal of the Chief Constable of Kent, who ...
My last day before I disappear on five buses. I had a run along the promenade and noticed a police operation. I take my hat off to the police. We should remember that they spend an awful lot of time and care following up "concerns for safety". Often they are like emergency social workers. Full marks to them. Hove Plinth is a thing. At the moment it has a beautiful sculpture called "Flight of the Langoustine" on it (pictured). While having breakfast I watched the debate on A Liberal Vision for primary health care. It was good to see our ...
It maybe that I have been spoilt by nearly 40 years of attending Liberal and Liberal Democrats conferences.. I was in Llandudno in 1981, when conference voted by 1,600 to 112 to form an electoral alliance with the SDP and David Steel told us to go back to our constituencies and prepare for government. I was one of the 112. I was present in Eastbourne in 1986 for the defence debate when the representatives defied the party leadership and unconditionally rejected the compromise on defence agreed with David Owen. I saw the electrifying speech by Simon Hughes MP for the ...
As is traditional in a dry summer, Our History Underfoot has been to Ladybower Reservoir to see what remains of Derwent village have been revealed by the receding waters. In a second video, he wonders at the many people who claim to have seen the steeple of Derwent church standing proud above the waves when they are not old enough to have done so. It was dynamited in 1947, partly because visitors had taken to swimming out to reach it. Proof that the historical record is wrong? No, just another reminder of the fallibility of human memory.
The weekend's Guardian (Saturday 19th September) contains a review by Daniel Trilling of a book by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor called "End Times Fascism." According to Trilling the purpose of the book is to warn us of a convergence of three interests which are in effect encouraging the climate crisis rather than working to prevent it. The book focusses chiefly on the United States and identifies the three interest as the "Religious Fanatics" ( the Christian Right who look forward to the Rapture and the end of the World, when the righteous will be "caught up to meet the ...
For too long, student finance has been the subject our party would rather avoid. I understand why. It is uncomfortable territory. The scars of the coalition run deep, and many of us have heard about them on doorsteps ever since. But we cannot keep kicking the can down the road. Millions of graduates are paying the price. If we want to win back the trust of my generation – the graduates who signed up to Plan 2 loans between 2012 and 2023, and the growing cohort on the new Plan 5 loans – we have to offer them a solution. ...
Greetings from somewhere close to Brighton Beach. Admittedly, the Brighton Beach at the end of the B Line from the Bronx, through Manhattan to Queens, but close nonetheless. There has been a lot of talk about the impact of large donors in recent weeks, with increasing calls for strict limits on the maximum size of donations and tighter eligibility criteria for donors. And there is much to said for it. The problem is that political parties have become increasingly dependent on a small number of large donors as membership numbers have declined and the obligations on political parties increase. Raising ...
Were Freddie and Fiona burnt alive in a giant wicker rabbit on the village green at Beltane or not? It looks as though the Sisters know more than they're letting on. Friday One does meet the most interesting people in Westminster. This morning it is the man who puts up the shelves at 10 Downing Street. With our new prime minister shelving so many of the plans he once boasted of, business has never been better for him. He is so flush that he stands me a drink, which I think very sporting of him. Being in Westminster, I think ...
Conference kicks off with two brief policy debates on making recruitment fairer and regulating abusive use of the legal system. Then GP services in England before a keynote speech by Max Wilkinson. After a three hour lunch break for fringes, there's a debate on supporting people to age well in England, a keynote speech by Jane Dodds and a motion on stopping violence against women and girls in the digital age from Lib Dem Women and Marie Goldman, our Women and Equalities spokesperson. The day ends with the parliamentary parties' report and two emergency motions. One is from YL on ...
Somehow I managed to drag myself into the main hall for the early doors "Making music matter" motion. Jennie Rigg neatly summarised the whole thing saying that copyright law is not being enforced so that LLMs (Large Language Models) copy existing music and it is churned out as "AI slop". She added that AI2 should be used to support musicians but instead it is being used to rip off composers and musicians. I then went to my go-to quiet spot to write a speech. I have an idea for the strategy debate later. Mind you, it's been ten years since ...
We've all enjoyed the regular resignations, defections and disgrace of Reform UK councillors, but the party actually gained councillors from by-election victories and defections, between May 2025 and May 2026. But now, as the latest post from the indefatigable Augustus Carp shows, the tide has turned for them. The kaleidoscope of local government has continued to twist since the local elections in May, and with it a number of political allegiances have changed. Sometimes a councillor's defection has little impact, but clustering in some authorities has led to significant weakening in control. For the first time since I started paying ...
The Independent reports on comments by Lib Dem Leader, Ed Davey, that the Conservatives and Reform UK are planning to turn Britain into a "Trump satellite state". He told the conference that the Liberal Democrat's "orange wall" will stop Reform UK's rise to power and "setting communities against each other": Sir Ed warned an "unholy alliance" between Mr Farage and Kemi Badenoch is "the only way either can get into power". "Together, they want to turn Britain into a Trump satellite state which would trash our NHS, turn our communities against each other, cause untold damage to our environment, and ...