New Strathkelvin and Bearsden MSP Adam Harley made his first speech in Holyrood yesterday, highlighting the importance of providing young people with opportunities, protecting important community facilities and restoring trust in politics. Adam originally worked in theatre and the arts before moving over to the charity sector, fighting for the rights of people with cystic fibrosis to access life-saving medicines. He has also volunteered for organisations educating children from disadvantaged backgrounds and has worked with community groups supporting young people in danger of becoming involved in the criminal justice system, helping them turn their lives around. The text is below ...
Lord knows I love an election map and I start this blog by looking at the 2009 map for Upper Tier Local Authorities. As you can see it's a depressing sea of blue with one small fleck of amber in Bristol, the one gain we made that year. This map represents 12 years of protest votes against New Labour that the Tories mostly capitalised on, not us Lib Dems. The New Labour era represented slim pickings for Lib Dems at a local level - we only made substantial gains in three out of 13 years, and they were directly after ...
Rebuilding the trust of the Queer Community will be a long road. Yet, it is one we have now begun. I have written before about how the Party's reluctance to meaningfully challenge the regressive trend of queer rights in the UK has resulted in a loss of trust from the trans community, pushing many dedicated and experienced activists to join the Green Party. But, as the response from the Party to the EHRC Code of Practice has shown, there is potential to turn around this regressive trend. The Party likes to talk about our outstanding record on standing up for ...
At the heart of Britain's care settlement lies a contradiction: unpaid carers are thanked for their work, while the growing responsibilities and stresses they face are ignored, with little to no reprieve. Unpaid carers across the UK provide care worth approximately £184 billion a year, with more and more responsibilities absorbed by households, which increased by 29.3% between 2011 and 2022. Those same care responsibilities usually fall on one family member, with women aged 55-59 years old and living in the highest levels of poverty being most likely to provide unpaid care in Wales alone. Public Health Wales found that ...
"In the Wigan constituency, which has always been Labour-held but where Reform picked up 24 out of 25 seats in last month's local elections, the governing party's by-election message is focused squarely on Burnham. It is a cartoon of his face emblazoned across leaflets and Correx boards, along with the words "ANDY FOR US". Labour branding is limited, pretty much, to what is legally required."Sienna Rodgers takes us inside the Labour campaign in the Makerfield by-election. Lucia Osborne-Crowley interviews Gisè€le Pelicot, whose courage transformed the debate around abuse, about survival, reclaiming confidence - and shutting down the tools of sexual ...
I write this as a serial and vocal complainer about much of what the Parliamentary Party does. I have been such for many years. Way back in the neolithic era I won awards for blogging my complaints. So it's only fair that when the Parliamentary Party knocks something out of the park I be equally vocal with my praise. Firstly, on Sunday, Ed Davey, our leader and Marie Goldman, our Equalities Spokes, sent this letter to Bridget Phillipson. The consensus among the exec of LGBT+LDs was "well, we might have worded a couple of things differently, but mostly, it's really ...
[IMG: Headshot of Andrew Reeves] Fifteen years ago this morning, I was woken up by an unusually early phone call from a friend telling me the devastating news that Andrew Reeves, our campaigns director in Scotland, had died suddenly at the heartbreakingly young age of 43. Andrew was hilarious, incredibly hard working and very good at getting you to do very much more than you had ever planned to do for a particular campaign. We had known each other for years online before he moved to Scotland in 2008, but I first worked closely with him in the 2008 Glenrothes ...
The closing track of the Spencer Davis Group's second album, which was imaginatively titled The Second Album. It was Bobby Parker, a Black American artist, who wrote and first performed this song.
This article was published on Liberal Democrat Voice on Sunday Listening to David Miliband at the Hay Literary Festival a few days ago, two things that he said struck me as interesting. The first was that the Labour government had been elected to effect change, but they have not changed enough. The second related to the high number of young people who have left school with no education, employment or training opportunity. Where is the triple lock for that cohort, he asked. Of course, both of these statements are easy soundbites, needing much more policy detail and commitment before any ...
Cole-Hamilton calls for SNP inquiry and Sturgeon to assist cops Transport Sec pushed on A9 dualling committee Cole-Hamilton calls for SNP inquiry and Sturgeon to assist cops Responding to Peter Murrell's hearing today and confirmation that the majority of items bought with stolen funds have not been located, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: While there is a comical note to Peter Murrell purchasing shampoo and conditioner for his ill-gotten campervan, it is extremely serious that the SNP Chief Executive was routinely producing fraudulent invoices, especially when the party had received considerable sums of public money over the years. ...
Rennie puts questions to minister over Lower Melville Wood fire Cole-Hamilton slams SNP for more miserable health figures Youth unemployment in Wales soars nine times faster than Scotland as Welsh Lib Dems warn of "Lost Generation" Rennie puts questions to minister over Lower Melville Wood fire North East Fife MSP Willie Rennie has today written to the new community safety minister, Kirsten Oswald MSP, to raise more than a dozen questions about the Lower Melville Wood fire and how the incident was handled. He has also called for a public meeting to discuss the future of the site. Following the ...
Last night I watched Quatermass 2 on Talking Pictures TV - it's currently on the stations catch-up service TPTV Encore. In the clip above you can see Professor Quatermass sweeping into the remote settlement of Winnerton Flats. In reality, it's the new town of Hemel Hempstead under construction. The road we see him driving down is Galley Hill, the houses where he stops of ask directions are in Someries Road and the community centre is on Boxted Road. See Reelstreets for some now and then photographs. This is of particular interest to me as I lived in Boxted Road as ...
Given how popular (and lengthy!) my list of Reform councillor departures after the May 2025 elections turned out to be, here is a new list, this time for councillors elected under the Reform banner on 7 May 2026, or in by-elections after that date, who have already departed the party for one reason or another. Glenn Gibbins, Sunderland: suspended by Reform following allegations of racism and, so far, has not signed his declaration of office in order to take up his seat (May 2026). Jay Cooper, Sefton: declared "not welcome" by Nigel Farage following reports of him calling the Holocaust ...
James Bryce was an academic who became a Liberal MP and then a diplomat - he served as Britain's ambassador in Washington from 1907 to 1913. He doesn't sound or look the sort of person to give rise to humour, but Jonathan Parry's review of a new study of Bryce for the London Review of Books won two snorts and a smile from me. First snort (I have a dark sense of humour): His schoolmaster father, a devoted geologist and botanist, taught him to observe the beauties of the natural world, believing that revelation and natural science were God's complementary ...
Embed from Getty ImagesSad news on Liberal Democrat Voice this morning: Michael Meadowcroft has died at the age of 84. His victory in Leeds West in 1983 - the first Liberal gain from Labour at a general election in decades - was one of the few high points of what was, in the context of the Alliance's hopes and ambitions, a deeply disappointing election night. By then Michael already had a reputation as the Liberal Party's thinker - I remember the frisson when he turned up on the final day of a Union of Liberal Students conference in Leeds in ...
It is with great sadness that we note the passing of Michael Meadowcroft. The West Leeds Dispatch reports: "Former Liberal MP for Leeds West, alderman, journalist and political affairs consultant, Michael Meadowcroft, has died at the age of 84 after a short illness, his family have announced." We will, of course, carry a full obituary for Michael in due course. For now, we link to a 2020 piece Michael wrote for Liberal Democrat Voice which politely gave the party a kick up the proverbial, ending with these words: To survive in any meaningful political and electoral presence, the party has ...
There is an interesting article on Byline Times in which Oliver Bullough, who has written a number of books about the way oligarchs and corrupt state players exploit the UK's financial system to launder and hide money, argues that we must act now to prevent a complete oligarch takeover of British politics. Bullough says that when you step back and look at Nigel Farage's £5 million gift from Christopher Harborne, even when you compare it to illegal donations, you can see that there has never been anything like it in British politics, and people are right therefore to be more ...