Tanya Park

South Cambridgeshire proved it works. It should be Lib Dem policy

By Tanya Park | Wed 22nd April 2026 - 1:55 pm

In July 2025, South Cambridgeshire District Council did something no other UK council had done. It made the four-day week permanent. Not as a trial, not as a temporary arrangement, but as the way the council works. Its staff complete 100% of their work in 80% of the time, for 100% of the pay. The government told them to stop. They didn’t. The results came in: £371,500 in annual savings, a 120% rise in job applications, a 40% fall in staff turnover. Services maintained. Budget improved. Staff retained.

South Cambridgeshire is a Lib Dem council. This is our proof of concept. And we have not built on it.

That is the question this piece wants to ask, directly and without much diplomatic padding: why not?

Ed Davey said publicly he was proud of what South Cambridgeshire had done. Bridget Smith, the council leader, spoke at the 2024 autumn conference about having “sown the seeds” for a serious party debate. Eighteen months on, it is still not party policy. The seeds appear to still be in the packet.

The political landscape has shifted in the meantime. Labour committed to a 32-hour week in its 2019 manifesto and then buried the policy under Starmer, a senior adviser telling journalists flatly it was “a decision for individual businesses.” The Employment Rights Act does not touch working hours. Twenty-five councils have debated following South Cambridgeshire’s lead. Iceland, Portugal, and a 61-organisation UK trial have all produced evidence pointing in the same direction. The 4 Day Week Foundation is recruiting for two fresh pilots in 2026. The momentum is building, and the main Westminster parties are standing well back from it. That is an open goal. And it has our name on it.

The case for the four-day week is usually made in the language of productivity and well-being, and that case is strong and well-documented. But the more interesting argument, and the more distinctively liberal one, is about freedom. Specifically, about who gets to decide how their hours are spent.

The current working week was not designed for most people’s lives. It was built around a particular kind of worker: male, without primary caring responsibilities, in reasonable health, with someone else managing the domestic infrastructure. That design has never been seriously revised. Around five to six million people in Britain provide unpaid care, the majority of them women, and they are paying a daily time penalty the system imposes without acknowledging it. The carer who has quietly given up on promotion because she cannot afford the extra hours. The disabled worker who has used every hour of flexibility on medical appointments and arrives already depleted. The low-paid warehouse worker who wants to do an Open University course so they can have a chance at the career they want. These are not edge cases. They are the people for whom the current settlement does not work, and for whom a shifted baseline would mean something real.

Liberalism has always been, at its best, about more than leaving people alone. It is about creating the conditions in which people can actually shape their own lives. Time is one of those conditions. An extra day is not a perk. It is, for a great many people, the difference between a life that is merely endured and one that is actually lived. That is a liberal argument. It belongs to us more naturally than it belongs to anyone else.

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Advert

A single point of failure: Why we need the NHS to remove Palantir.

By Martin Wrigley, Rebecca Jones, Theo Brown | Wed 22nd April 2026 - 12:55 pm

Most of us by now will have heard of the tech giant Palantir, and its deal with the NHS to build a federated data platform.

Putting to one side the influences of Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings and Peter Mandelson in dodgy looking tech deals, revolving doors and high-pressure lobbying, the more we look into it, the more questions the NHS Palantir deal raises.  

My team and I have been investigating and asking questions in Parliament.  Last week I, (Martin) secured a Westminster Hall debate on the Palantir issue, and I made the case that Palantir’s implementation of the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP) has the wrong contract, the wrong solution and the wrong supplier.

I’m sure most of us at some point in our lives have looked online to try and find a program we need, only to find out to our frustration that you cannot buy it outright and must instead pay a hefty subscription cost. Now, imagine the same thing but instead of paying £50 a year you are paying over £330M that gives you no software, no improvements and no intellectual property at the end of the contract.  That’s what the last government set up. 

But let’s look past the outrageous terms and look at what the supplier has provided for the NHS in past contracts. With such a high price tag it must have excelled at previous tasks, right?

Well, sadly not.  In Autumn 2020, Palantir won a £20 million contract for a border-flow system.  After a year or two this was cancelled as it had no users and no useful function.

And then, despite having no prior expertise in health they were given a contract to help manage the data from the COVID vaccination program.   Although that contract was a loss-leader, given for free…

After that, with influence from the NHS data team, Palantir won the 3-year contract in November 2023 for a Federated Data Platform.  Intended to deliver AI insights into the NHS, this was to connect all 200-odd hospital trusts into a data warehouse and analysis tool.

This subscription service was meant to deliver 13 core capabilities. According to the national audit office and the supplier themselves, after three years they have partially delivered three or four of them.

When they appeared last year in front of the select committee that I sit on (Science, Innovation and Technology), the only improvement Palantir and the NHS team could name was an improvement in managing staff rotas to deliver a higher throughput for operating theatres. 

Now I know this has been an issue for many years in the NHS, but technology has improved vastly, and today even relatively simple apps can do the logistics to rota staff.

Also, I do wonder whether this may be down to Government improvements in staffing and pay rather than the magic of Palantir. 

In what world is this contract a good deal for the NHS?

Maybe it’s not a good deal, but at least the software will be beneficial to patients and improve treatment, right?

Well, there has been many attempts within the NHS to unify its systems through a single IT system. They have all failed bar some improvements towards it’s combined data dictionary. You would therefore expect Trusts and ICB’s to jump at the opportunity for Palantir’s FDP, but after three years we have about half of the trusts stating they are live on the FDP, with just a quarter reporting benefit.

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Ed Fordham

“Forthright, clear, determined, energetic” – a tribute to Councillor Jeanette Sunderland

By Ed Fordham | Wed 22nd April 2026 - 10:54 am

Jeanette Sunderland running Photo Credit: Bradford Lib Dems

Some people stand at the front and lead, others sit and back and chunter. Jeanette Sunderland did both, and did them both very well. Forthright, clear, determined, energetic and a real sense of no-nonsense she was a familiar face to so so many of us within the Liberal Democrat family.

In tough times and good Jeanette would be there – often turning up to the by-elections that could not be won, precisely because she knew they could not be won and she wanted to help and thank the team who were flying the flag for liberal democracy.

Across at least three decades Jeanette was a liberal to her core, and her untimely death this week will come as a very real shock to so many.

ALDC was very much a part of who Jeanette was and what she believed in – but she was no sycophant. Few people could express their concerns or criticism so clearly and so nicely – if she was angry you could just tell, words were often not needed. Jeanette was always willing to ask the question no-one else dared. I recall then Party Leader Nick Clegg MP being at an ALDC reception taking questions, Jeanette was straight to the point: “if our MP’s are wiped out in the forthcoming General Election, will you resign?” The room gasped at the boldness of the question and Jeanette added “oh come on, you all know it’s coming and if you don’t you deserve to lose.”

Back in February 1998 we won our first ever seat for over a generation on the City of Stoke-on-Trent, Jeanette rang to congratulate and to arrange a group meeting. I explained that Cllr Ian Openshaw was our first councillor and we didn’t have a Group. Back came the reply: “im planning ahead and suggesting June, that gives you time to win the by-election ward again and become a group of two.” When May came round we won the ward again and I gained a second ward and we became a group of three. I excitedly rang her to arrange an Away Day for June as Jeanette had suggested – she was delighted. I also recall her collapsing into tears of laughter when, catching up at a party conference soon after, i showed her the photo I had taken of a wall in Stoke on which was sprayed “Preserve the past! The future’s f****d!” She quipped through the tears, “well they’re not wrong”.

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Gavin Stollar

We must stand together against anti-Jewish hatred

By Gavin Stollar | Tue 21st April 2026 - 12:42 pm

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The past week has forced many across our country to confront a deeply troubling reality: anti-Jewish hatred is not an abstract concern, but a present and growing threat here in Britain. Yet there remains a striking silence from parts of our society that have long prided themselves on standing against racism in all its forms.

In the space of just days, three arson attacks have targeted the Jewish community, including petrol bomb attacks on synagogues in Finchley and Kenton. It is only by sheer good fortune that these buildings did not suffer the same devastating fate as the Hatzola ambulances set alight in Golders Green last month. These incidents come only months after the murders at Heaton Park Synagogue on Yom Kippur, and against a backdrop of police data showing that British Jews are, per capita, far more likely to be victims of religious hate crime than any other group.

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Tom Reeve

Why does cautious Starmer keep getting it wrong?

By Tom Reeve | Tue 21st April 2026 - 10:51 am

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Yesterday, Keir Starmer faced Parliament to explain how a man who failed his security vetting ended up as Britain’s most important ambassador. It is a question worth asking. But there is a deeper one beneath it: how does a prime minister who presents himself as the cautious, process-respecting antidote to Conservative chaos keep finding himself in exactly these situations?

The Mandelson affair is, in miniature, the story of this government. A political decision was taken — to appoint a Labour grandee to a high-profile role. Warnings existed. Red flags had been raised. The vetting process that was supposed to filter out exactly these problems produced a recommendation to deny clearance. And yet the appointment went ahead, with civil servants apparently acting on the understanding that the prime minister wanted it to happen. When it collapsed, spectacularly, Starmer said he was furious he hadn’t been told. The civil servant who overrode the vetting was sacked. The prime minister, once again, was the victim of events – or was he?

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Mathew Hulbert

Mathew on Monday: is Keir Starmer the most incurious Prime Minister in British history?

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 20th April 2026 - 5:45 pm

There is something increasingly puzzling – and politically dangerous – about the way that Keir Starmer governs. It is not simply that things go wrong on his watch; every Prime Minister faces crisis, missteps, and the odd unforced error. It is that, time and again, Starmer appears oddly detached from the very events shaping his premiership. As if politics and government are things that happen to him, rather than things he actively directs.

That sense of detachment is beginning to harden into something more troubling: a complete lack of curiosity.

Effective leadership demands an almost relentless inquisitiveness – a desire to know what is happening, why it is happening, and what might be coming next. It requires a Prime Minister to probe, to challenge, to test assumptions, and, crucially, to anticipate problems before they spiral. Starmer, by contrast, too often looks like a man content to sail above the fray – until, inevitably, he is dragged under by a storm he neither saw coming nor seems prepared to confront.

We have seen this pattern repeat itself. Controversies emerge, decisions. Unravel, narratives take hold – and Downing Street appears on the back foot. The sense is not of a government firmly in control, but of one constantly scrambling to catch up with events. That is not simply a communications failure; it speaks to something deeper about how power is being exercised.

Of course, there will be those who argue that this is a deliberate style, that Starmer is seeking to rise above the noise, to avoid the hyperactive, personality-driven politics of recent years. That he is, in effect, trying to de-dramatise the office of Prime Minister. If so, it isn’t working.

Because the vacuum created by that approach does not remain empty for long. It is filled by speculation, by confusion, and by opponents who are only too happy to define the narrative in his absence. Leadership is not about constant noise-but it is about presence. And increasingly, that presence feels lacking. More fundamentally, there is a difference between calm authority and passive drift. The former reassures; the latter unnerves. At present, Starmer is very much in the second category.

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Mark Valladares

This week in the Lords – 20-24 April 2026

By Mark Valladares | Mon 20th April 2026 - 3:46 pm

With the progation of Parliament approaching fast, it’s something of a “hanging around” week for those on the red benches, waiting for the Commons to respond to Lords amendments, either by rejecting them outright, accepting them in part, or negotiating a settlement. You can never be entirely certain how it might all work out, and with the Government distracted by events elsewhere…

Bills

As it was last week, the week is dominated by “ping pong”, starting on Monday with what is described as “consideration of Commons amendment and/or reasons” on the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and the Pension Schemes Bill. Will the Lords press their amendments? Does the Salisbury Convention apply? We can only wait and see…

Tuesday is a day for Orders, with a curiosity being the Draft Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975 (Amendment) Order 2026, which seeks to make good an error in calculating Ministerial and other salaries. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee takes up the story with its usual dry humour…

The Cabinet Office says the issue was identified when calculating entitled salary increases for 2023/24 and that work “immediately began to find a suitable way to address it”. It added that this was a “complex and technical issue that took time to work through”, particularly due to challenges in tracing historic paper records and applying the formula using historic Permanent Secretary pay. Nevertheless, we are surprised that it took three years to address the issue and that the nature of the problem—the law not being followed correctly and people being paid the wrong sums of money—did not result in the Cabinet Office taking steps to resolve it sooner.

More ping pong on Wednesday, with the Crime and Policing Bill and, potentially, the Pension Schemes Bill, facing further scrutiny from Peers.

It’s the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill on Thursday, with a second day set aside for the Victims and Courts Bill if needed.

And, to wrap up the week, Friday sees further debate on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. It’s probably the last day of debate before the Bill formally runs into the sands. I’ve said all that I really can on this but can only repeat how much I regret the lack of a resolution.

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Jean-François Burford

Make Culture Really Count

By Jean-François Burford | Mon 20th April 2026 - 1:50 pm

Governments don’t just underestimate culture, media and sport, they depend on them, while systematically failing to sustain them.

In the UK, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport stands as a formal acknowledgement that these sectors matter. In practice, it has become a symbol of something else: a gap between rhetoric and reality that has gone unchallenged for too long.

That gap is indefensible. The creative industries contribute £145.8bn to the economy, around 5.5% of GDP and the wider DCMS sectors account for close to a tenth of all economic output. They employ millions, grow faster than the wider economy, and project British influence globally. By any serious economic measure, they should be central to national strategy.

Instead, they are treated as optional.

This isn’t just a matter of perception; it is built into the system. At local level, most spending on arts, culture and sport is not protected. Councils are not required to fund it. When budgets come under pressure, as they have year after year, these areas are cut first. Libraries close. Youth services disappear. Community sport collapses. What is lost is not just access, but opportunity and once gone, it rarely returns.

This is not inevitable. It is the result of political design.

Nationally, the imbalance is just as stark. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport operates with a fraction of the budget of departments such as the National Health Service or the Ministry of Defence, despite overseeing sectors that generate a significant share of UK growth. This is not about affordability. It is about priority and a persistent failure to align investment with economic reality.

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Mark Corner

What is the best way back into the EU?

By Mark Corner | Mon 20th April 2026 - 12:17 pm

I appreciated Gareth McAleer’s article in Lib Dem Voice on the economic power-up to be had from rejoining the EU, but while I support his desire to rejoin I think a different approach will be more effective.

Economic arguments are always difficult and precision hard to achieve. As the saying goes, an economist is someone who if you ask for a telephone number gives you an estimate. It would be better to say that rejoining the single market will be of obvious economic benefit and leave others to fill in the billions. The alternative view, the Boris Johnson idea that …

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Nina Wessel

The Labour threat to the Right to Protest

By Nina Wessel | Mon 20th April 2026 - 10:56 am

Last week, the government forced through parliament the controversial “cumulative disruption” power, which enables police to ban protests on the grounds that they take place repeatedly. This attack on the fundamental freedoms of assembly and expression has been strongly criticised by the UN and human rights organisations.

Introduced by the Lords as an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill, this legislation was not subject to full debate and scrutiny in parliament, MPs were denied a separate vote on the cumulative disruption amendment, and the vote on the bill was pushed through before the conclusions of the independent review.

This is the latest measure in a trend to impose restrictions on the democratic right to protest, and raises serious civil liberties concerns.

As noted by Liberal Democrat peer Lord Strasburger in a recent article for Middle East Eye, banning repeat protests ignores a basic lesson of democratic history – that sustained action is central to achieving democratic change:

From women’s suffrage to civil rights to anti-war movements, meaningful change has always depended on people returning, again and again, to make their voices heard. Curtailing protest simply because it is persistent strikes at the heart of that tradition, and risks targeting the very causes that are most likely to be worthy of protest.

Together with Lord Marks and Baroness Doocey, our justice and police spokespersons in the Lords respectively, Lord Strasburger backed an amendment in the Lords to remove the repeat-protest provisions from the Bill. That amendment was not ultimately put to a vote after the Conservatives declined to support it.

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Mark Valladares

Welcome to my day: 20 April 2026 – the wrong sort of vetting?

By Mark Valladares | Mon 20th April 2026 - 9:38 am

It’s coming to that time when nobody wants to leave anything to chance, when the pressure is on. Yes, I’m talking about the end of the football season, with titles, promotion and relegation still to be decided.

I spent part of yesterday at Portman Road, as Ipswich Town fought out a rather nervy 2-2 draw with promotion rivals Middlesbrough, in front of nearly 30,000 spectators, and was struck by the similarities with a political campaign. You bring together the best team you can muster, prepare as best you can, determine the appropriate strategy to defeat your opponent and hope that the ball runs kindly for you on the big day.

At least, that’s how it often used to be. Nowadays, with five political parties all vying for supremacy, the variables can be bewildering and the outcomes potentially even more so. As that veteran of Birmingham politics, Paul Tilsley, said to the Guardian,

I think the result is going to be somewhat of a bugger’s muddle. I cannot see you getting to a result on 7 May where you could put two parties together to govern Birmingham. No single party is going to win.

I suspect that, where I am, in Ipswich, the picture is similar. The town has traditionally been a Labour/Conservative marginal, but with both parties unpopular and vulnerable, the Greens and Reform will hope to lure voters away from the left and right, whilst Liberal Democrats will hope to benefit from politically homeless centre-right voters. I frankly wouldn’t like to call either the Borough or County Council outcomes, and I suspect that there’ll be an outbreak of genuinely “no overall control” authorities post-7 May. Mind you, Ipswich still elects in thirds, so the worst case scenario will still leave Labour in control here.

It’s a busy week ahead too, with Sir Kier Starmer supposedly under increasing pressure over the continued fallout from the Mandelson Affair. Whilst I find myself wondering where any replacement might come from, we will at least get greater insight into how the vetting system works. And that leads me to, perhaps, one obvious question – why would you announce a highly sensitive appointment before the vetting is completed? It’s almost as though the vetting is irrelevant, that a box must be ticked. It is an odd way to run a railway.

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Mark Valladares

18-19 April 2026 – the weekend’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Sun 19th April 2026 - 11:42 pm
  • Cole-Hamilton urges voters to postal vote for Scot Lib Dems on peach ballot paper
  • Cut the rural cost of living and help farmers to flourish
  • Reid hits out as ministers drop fines for poor ferry performance

Cole-Hamilton urges voters to postal vote for Scot Lib Dems on peach ballot paper

Alex Cole-Hamilton has today used a visit to a climbing wall in Edinburgh to urge voters voting by post to reach for the Scottish Liberal Democrats on the peach regional ballot paper, saying that more Scottish Liberal Democrat MSPs will get more good things done in the next session of Parliament.

At the event, he highlighted his party’s record of achievements over the past five years which included:

  • £178m to support businesses through rates relief, including a package over 3 years to help licensed premises like pubs, restaurants, hotels, music venues, licensed clubs and night clubs – linchpins of the high street that have suffered in the cost of living crisis and deserve better. There was also £4m for self-catering businesses to cap their increases and provide a bridge to the next revaluation.
  • £70m for colleges – equivalent to a 10% uplift on last year’s budget.
  • £20m for social care so providers have the funding they need to lift workers’ pay to the Real Living Wage.
  • £9.4m for hospices to help them attract and retain staff by mirroring NHS pay rates.
  • £5m more for the Investing in Communities Fund, keeping open projects, services and activities in disadvantaged communities.
  • £7.5m to speed up autism and ADHD assessments.
  • £2.5m to back young entrepreneurs.
  • £7.1m for islands-specific investment, with money to remove peak ferry fares and a commitment to kickstart a new accelerator model.
  • Facilities to help new mums and babies born addicted to drugs
  • Cash for flood-stricken families and businesses in Fife when the government initially turned its back.
  • Suzanne’s Law and Michelle’s Law, strengthening the rights of victims and their families.
  • Specialist support for long Covid, ME and chronic fatigue.
  • A future for Corseford College for young people with complex needs.
  • Money restored to the housing budget after it was cut by the Greens and SNP.
  • The right for family carers to earn more without being penalised.
  • Work restarted on Edinburgh’s Eye Hospital and the Belford in Fort William.
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George Cunningham

Time is ticking: Britain’s defences need urgent fixing

By George Cunningham | Sun 19th April 2026 - 1:55 pm

This week, the government suffered its latest humiliation when Lord George Robertson, a former NATO Secretary-General, ex-Labour Defence Secretary and chair of the government’s 2025 Strategic Defence Review accused the government of “corrosive complacency” in risking the country’s security by dragging his heels on how the government will fund rebuilding its military in the face of the growing threat from Russia.

A rising crescendo of articles and speeches by ex-military, defence correspondents and experts – and our very own Lib Dem defence spokesperson James MacCleary MP – have been highlighting that the government’s Strategic Defence Review remains little more than rhetoric after one year. 

Poland (4.5%), Latvia (4%) and Lithuania (3.7%) have the highest GDP % expenditure of NATO members on defence. Germany is hugely increasing its defence budget by lifting its debt brake to spend nearly €650bn over the next five years. Even France has managed an increase in its defence budget by EUR 6.5bn for 2027, despite a debt level (117% of GDP), higher than the UK’s (110%). However, the UK is in last place (alongside France), in terms of growing its defence budget amongst European NATO partners during the past decade. 

The shocking state of British armed forces means that we cannot defend ourselves effectively. Aircraft carriers that cannot be adequately protected, an eviscerated Royal Navy with all major ships but one destroyer, one frigate and one Astute class nuclear submarine under maintenance or repair, an army that can barely pull together a functioning brigade of soldiers for immediate deployment. Surely, our armed forces, whose men and women put their lives at risk for the nation, deserve better.

Picture of a tankThe Defence Investment Plan – which our industry needs to produce the weapons and equipment – continues to be “missing in inaction”.   The Ministry of Defence is in a fight with the Treasury for more money – and not getting very far. We are meant to increase our defence budget from 2.3% (£68 bn) to 2.5% of GDP by next year, yet the defence chiefs are now being asked to find £3.5bn of savings, raising fears that weapons projects may be even further delayed. If the Chagos Islands deal eventually goes through, it will lop another 0.2% of GDP off the defence budget. Neither logic nor maths add up. 

Commentators are saying we only have 2-3 years to fix the problem at best we can because of the Russian threat. And already a year has been lost (and four since the second invasion of Ukraine). So the painful question is how can we raise the money for defence in the short time (let alone manufacture the equipment we need)? Some ideas:

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 19th April 2026 - 11:44 am

China

The invisible hand of Beijing has been busily pulling the backstage strings to try and organise Iran War peace talks.

Pakistan—which has been the lead country in mediation country—is a close ally of China and is clearly coordinating Its honest broker activities with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi who prefers to remain in the shadows.

Economically China desperately needs an end to Trump’s War. Ninety percent of its oil comes from Iran and, as the world’s second largest economy, China needs global stability to maintain growth.

At the same time, Chinese President Xi Jinping must be smiling to himself as Donald Trump entangles himself in a needless Middle East war which distracts him away from the Chinese priorities of Taiwan, the Philippines and the South China Sea. It also enables him to project China as a nation of calm reasonableness compared to an America run by an erratic president committed to riding roughshod over international law and conventions.

But what China does not want to do is be seen to be actively involved in discussions about the Iran War. This week a host of visitors including the Spanish prime minister and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi visited Beijing to try to persuade Xi Jinping to offer direct mediation.

Tehran, for its part, has called on China to guarantee its security. The Chinese have the facilities to do the job. They have a naval base around the corner in Djibouti on the Red Sea. Even closer is their port of Gwadar near in Pakistan near the Iranian border. It is currently used exclusively for commercial purposes, but it could be quickly adapted to military use.

But China’s rulers have looked at the sad experiences of the US and concluded that they have little desire to commit their military to the risk of being dragged into a costly war that will undermine their own strength and brand.

Behind the scenes, backstage, quiet diplomacy—yes. Anything more, No, for fear of being blamed for any failure. And where the Middle East is concerned, failure is the name of the game.

Hungary

It is now time for the big Hungarian clean-up. The new prime minister, Peter Magyar has promised just that, and he has a comfortable super majority to achieve it.

But it will not be easy, Orban has packed the media, industry and academia with his cronies. They have all said they would construct legal obstacles to dislodge them, and the courts have also been filled with Fidesz supporters.

From a foreign perspective Magyar’s biggest challenge will be clawing back funding for the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC). The MCC poses as an educational institute but in reality, is the main financial vehicle for funding an international far-right network of institutions, political parties, pressure groups and think tanks.

The funds for MCC come from shares in Hungary’s massive state-owned energy company MOL. Orban organised a transfer of a large bloc of MOL shares to MCC. They in turn have sent funds to the Reform Party in UK, AfD in Germany, the National Rally in France and Vox in Spain. MCC also helps to finance the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC)

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Gareth McAleer

Why Cromwell’s Statue at Westminster Should Come Down

By Gareth McAleer | Sun 19th April 2026 - 9:53 am

As Liberal Democrats we like to think of ourselves as champions of liberty and the equal dignity of every person. That is why we should be uneasy with the statue of Oliver Cromwell outside the Houses of Parliament. It is not just a carving in stone. It is a symbol of honour placed at the threshold of our democracy by a state that still chooses to celebrate a man whose rule was built on conquest, massacre and the systematic displacement of entire peoples across Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland. If we take …

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: The Cost

By Tom Arms | Sat 18th April 2026 - 9:43 am

Trump’s War against Iran has upended the world economy. And it has only just begun. As one economist said: “At the moment things are bad. They are going to get worse and they could become catastrophic.”

At the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) spring meeting of world finance ministers the IMF revised down world economic growth for 2026 from 3.3 percent to 3.1 percent. It then went on to warn that if the Iran War continued much longer there was a real risk of a global recession.

Of the world’s advanced economies, the UK is the hardest hit according to both the IMF and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Predicted growth in the UK is 0.8 percent for 2026, down from 1.3 percent.

Even harder hit are the Asia Pacific countries who are dependent on the Persian Gulf for their gas and oil-based energy. Asia is also the most populous continent and accounts for more than half of global manufacturing which means that economic hits to that region have major global impact. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) reckons that the war has already cost Asia-Pacific countries $300 billion.

Fossil fuels are not the only vital commodity exported from the Persian Gulf. The region is the world’s major source of urea which is a derivative of natural gas and a major component of fertiliser. There is a real danger that the lack of fertiliser will hit global crop yields.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned that forty-five million people could be pushed into “food insecurity” and that food shortages could reach “catastrophic levels.”

The Eurozone has also been hit. IMF growth predictions for the Eurozone have been revised down from 1.3 percent to 1.1 percent and inflation is expected to go up from 2.1 percent to 2.6 percent. Trump’s war has made it unlikely that the European Central Bank can cut interest rates. In fact, they may have to raise them. This view is being echoed by central banks around the world.

Germany is the hardest hit of the Eurozone countries. This is because its economy is heavily geared towards manufacturing which in turn is fuelled by oil and gas. Because France derives a large part of its energy from nuclear power plants it will escape a lot of the pain, but the French finance minister has warned about inflation and supply chain risks.

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Mark Valladares

Scottish Liberal Democrats launch manifesto focused on health, cost of living, transport and education

By Mark Valladares | Sat 18th April 2026 - 7:30 am

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has launched his party’s manifesto focused on the issues that matter most to people right now, and made a plea to voters to back his party on the peach regional ballot to deliver change with fairness at its heart.

The manifesto can be found here.

Speaking at the Edinburgh Food & Drink Academy where he baked peach tarts for journalists, Mr Cole-Hamilton set out the party’s ten target constituency seats which would enable it to block the SNP from winning a parliamentary majority as well as the party’s four key priorities for the election:

  • Delivering first-rate health care by embedding 900 new multidisciplinary patient-facing staff like nurses, physios and mental health professionals in GP practices and investing £400m into care over the next three years in order to fix the NHS.
  • Helping you with the cost of living by insulating cold homes with an emergency £100m insulation programme, using Scottish renewable energy to drive down household bills and increasing support for unpaid carers by £400 a year.
  • Getting Scotland moving again – by driving progress on major projects such as dualling the A9 and tunnels for Shetland, passing a Ferries Bill that will end the SNP’s ferries fiasco for good and making £12m available immediately to compensate islanders and coastal communities.
  • Getting Scottish education back to its best by hiring 2,000 more pupil support assistants and banning phones from schools.

    • Speaking at the launch, Alex Cole-Hamilton said:

    Scotland has so much going for it but right now, it feels like our country simply isn’t working.

    Household bills are soaring. There are long waits to see your GP. The SNP’s ferries fiasco is a national embarrassment and Scottish education just isn’t what it used to be.

    We know you feel let down by the other parties. We think Scotland deserves better than this. But it needs to be change with fairness at its heart.

    We believe in fairness for everyone, no matter who you are or where you come from. That’s why we have a realistic plan to get things done, focused on the things that matter most like access to healthcare and the cost of living.

    Let me be straight with you. You have two votes. In many constituencies we are on the verge of winning against the SNP but wherever you are, every vote for the Scottish Liberal Democrats on the second peach ballot will deliver change with fairness at its heart.

    Scotland deserves better. And with the Scottish Liberal Democrats, you can vote for it.

    On tackling the challenges facing health and care he said:

    We will get you faster access to GPs and more local staff, driving early diagnosis and bringing down waits, and getting people back to work. It will be the equivalent of giving every GP practice the benefit of an additional member of clinical staff.

    We will rejuvenate local healthcare facilities and introduce a new Fair Deal for Rural Healthcare. We will roll out a national lung cancer screening programme, recruit and retain more NHS dentists, create walk-in mental health services, and our 10-year workforce plan for the NHS and care will take the pressure off overwhelmed services and get the right staff in the right place.

    You can’t fix the NHS unless you fix care – not with 2,000 people a night stuck in hospital when they don’t need or want to be there, costing the NHS over a million pounds a day. That’s why we will reward care workers with a new career ladder and halve the problem of delayed discharge by investing £400m into care over the next three years. We will increase the Carer Support Payment by over £400 a year for unpaid carers, and give every young carer someone who they can turn to for help balancing learning, life and caring for their loved one.

    That is how we deliver first-rate health and care services.

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Joe Nutt

ALDC by-election report, 16th April

By Joe Nutt | Fri 17th April 2026 - 3:42 pm

There were two principal council by-elections this week, both of which had a Liberal Democrat candidate on the ballot.

Northumberland Council, Cramlington South West

The Conservatives have gained the seat of Cramlington South West from Reform UK, who only won it themselves in last year’s local elections. But the incumbent councillor had to step down owing to illness. The seat was newly created in 2025. Generally, the Conservatives tend to do quite well in Cramlington, though in this specific seat they finished third behind Reform and Labour last year, while the Liberal Democrats did not put forward a candidate.

This result, alongside Reform’s loss in Kent last week and their reduced majority in the second of this week’s by-elections, may point to a possible “retention problem” for the party. While they finish top of the leaderboard both in terms of gains in by-elections and overall by-election wins since the 2025 locals, they finish third on seats successfully defended, only being able to hold onto less than half at 47%. For context, the Liberal Democrat retention rate over the same period is 80%. It could point to a problem that voters generally seem less enthusiastic about letting Reform back in again once they’ve tried them.

A huge thanks to Nick Cott for ensuring there was a Liberal Democrat option on the ballot paper this time.

Conservatives: 278 – 34.2% (+9.0)

Reform UK: 212 – 26.0% (-13.6)

Labour: 187 – 23.0% (-5.8

Green: 116 – 14.3% (New)

Independent: 13 – 1.6% (New)

Liberal Democrat: 7 – 0.9% (New)

 

Conservative GAIN from Reform UK

Turnout: 26.88%

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Mills Dyer

The Quiet Revival, my Roman Empire, and other times that I’ve been proven right

By Mills Dyer | Fri 17th April 2026 - 1:38 pm

It is rare that a podcast will make me immediately stop what I am doing.  However, this was the case last summer, when the brilliant ‘Since Churchill and Attlee’ podcast highlighted a study from The Bible Society called ‘The Quiet Revival’. The report claimed to show that 16% of 18-24 year olds surveyed (by YouGov) in 2024 were Christian and went to church at least once a month, rising from 4% in 2018. This survey result was not just extraordinary, but frankly, unbelievable. As I read the Bible Society report for myself and googled the coverage surrounding it, I realised with shock that this report was being picked up as if it was itself gospel.

This brings me to my Roman Empire, something that a person thinks deeply about on a regular basis. My Roman Empire is that, Christianity worldwide (but particularly in North America and Western Europe) is dying out, and that no one else is noticing. This is not to say that I do not have skin in this game. I left Christianity a few years ago, when I realised that I could no longer believe in a deity, much less attend a church, that was less compassionate than I was. A ‘casualty’ of the Christianity’s move towards the political right.

As an observer of the church in the UK and certified data nerd/psephologist, I knew that the data in the Bible Society’s report went against all available evidence. Attendance data from the Church of England and the Catholic Church, data from the UK Census, and the British Attitudes Survey all disagree to a sharp increase in Christian attendance or identification as the Bible Society are suggesting. The British Attitudes Survey even showing the reverse pattern the The Bible Society claim for an uptick in the identification with Christianity. Moreover, the consistent data picture is one of decades of steady decline.  In 1960, just under 7% were on the Church of England’s electoral roll, in 2019, that had dropped to just 1.5%. The 2021 Census shows that identification with Christianity has dropped below half the population for the first time in England and Wales (46.2%, down from 59.3% in 2011).

Why this is all relevant now is because a fortnight ago (27th March) The Bible Society pulled the report and the data/claims that went with it. Now YouGov, which carried out the research, has told the Bible Society that an internal review of the data found that some of the respondents who completed its survey were “fraudulent”.

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Josh Matthews

A UK Wellbeing Economy: The start of a Liberal Democrat vision and plan

By Josh Matthews | Fri 17th April 2026 - 10:07 am

We are at our best, as Liberal Democrats, when we have radical vision, challenge the status quo, AND have the plan to match.

Too few people in positions of power truly realise just how deep the failing of the current economy goes. It does not work for too many people.

But the question is not just what a new economy looks like, but how we unpick the old one and move forward.

This article outlines how the Liberal Democrats could construct and communicate a plan for a Wellbeing Economy in the UK. You can find more detail on each of the seven steps below published recently at Critical Mass for Sustainability.

The next stage of economics must be a transition to an economy judged not only by GDP, but by whether people can access care, find fulfilling and secure work, access a thriving local environment, afford a decent home, breathe clean air… all on a liveable planet.

A wellbeing economy matches our party’s deepest values: liberty, equality, community, democracy, and environmentalism.

Freedom, fairness, and equality of opportunity also cut across Liberal Democrat values and form the core of what a wellbeing economy could be:

  • A platform and the freedom to live your version of a best life.
  • Freedom in a fair society that works especially for the least advantaged.
  • Genuine equality of opportunity, not just theoretical opportunity written in law.

That new economy needs a practical route from the current, complex, globally connected system to a better one, built from inside the institutions, incentives, and fiscal realities we have now.

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Mark Valladares

15 April 2026 – the glitch-affected press releases (part 2)

By Mark Valladares | Thu 16th April 2026 - 11:45 pm

SNP candidate laughed at for education comments

Responding to SNP candidate Deirdre Brock’s comments on education at a hustings on Wednesday night, Scottish Liberal Democrat Edinburgh and Lothians East list candidate Jane Alliston Pickard said:

It was utterly bizarre to see a wannabe parliamentarian declare that basic skills are no longer needed.

People in the room were literally laughing at her.

Then again, when your only real goal is pushing SNP plans for breaking up the UK, perhaps it helps to have kids who are mathematically illiterate.

Education can be transformational but under the SNP Scotland is no longer the best in the world. Scottish

…

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Mark Valladares

13-15 April 2026 – the glitch-affected press releases (part 1)

By Mark Valladares | Thu 16th April 2026 - 11:25 pm

With apologies to all, as it seems as though my primary e-mail account has decided to glitch, only accepting some but not all e-mails directed to it… here are some press releases that have been issued over the past few days that we missed…

  • Legislate to make schools smartphone free, says Cole-Hamilton
  • Scot Lib Dems comment on Green manifesto launch
  • Scottish Lib Dems launch plans to revive high streets
  • Scot Lib Dems warn of “farming fuel crisis” as red diesel prices soar

Legislate to make schools smartphone free, says Cole-Hamilton

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has today set out how his party will legislate to make schools smartphone-free environments, as part of its plan to get Scottish education back to its best.

The party’s manifesto, to be published later this week, will enshrine the right of children to learn, and teachers to teach, by making every school a smartphone-free environment.

Alex Cole-Hamilton said:

Education is the best investment we can make in our children’s potential and our country’s future.

But after 19 years of the SNP, Scottish education just isn’t what it used to be. Every week I meet families worried that their child’s additional support needs aren’t being met, worried their teenager is frequently absent or worried about the violence in their schools. Fights and bullying are captured on phones and spread like wildfire. Our children deserve better.

Scottish Liberal Democrats will legislate to make schools smartphone-free environments, so children can learn and teachers can teach. We need to make the cultural change that this requires – it’s just not fair to leave this up to headteachers and ministerial guidance any longer.

Studies show the link between problematic smartphone use, poor mental health and poor sleep amongst teens. Phones are a distraction, apps are built to be addictive and there are relentless notifications. The classroom ought to offer a break to our young people from all of that – a bit of peace and quiet to learn, to focus, and properly connect with classmates and teachers.

That’s why making schools smartphone free is an essential part of the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ plan to get Scottish education back to its best.

Scot Lib Dems comment on Green manifesto launch

Responding to the Scottish Greens manifesto launch, Scottish Liberal Democrat campaign chair Wendy Chamberlain said:

The Scottish Greens came very close to promising every voter a free puppy. There were so many freebies on show that it blew any hope of credibility.

In government the Greens were responsible for wasting millions on a bottle deposit scheme that fell apart, cut £200m from the housing budget in the middle of a housing crisis and pushing plans for marine areas that would have cost coastal communities their livelihoods.

Unless you want a repeat of the Green tail wagging the SNP dog you should vote for Scottish Liberal Democrats on your peach regional ballot. We will deliver change with fairness at its heart, after years of SNP-Green neglect.

Scottish Lib Dems launch plans to revive high streets

Scottish Liberal Democrat economy spokesperson Jamie Greene has today set out his party’s plans to support Scottish high streets, as he pledged to review vape shops, improve public transport and explore a new system of business rates.

After successfully securing £178 million for the year ahead to help businesses with crushing rates rises, Scottish Liberal Democrats are now setting out a series of measures to get high streets thriving.

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Mark Valladares

16 April 2026 – the press releases

By Mark Valladares | Thu 16th April 2026 - 11:05 pm
  • Chamberlain: Peach ballot key to holding SNP to account on secrecy and broken promises
  • Vote to cut the cost of living urges Scot Lib Dem leader
  • Scottish Lib Dems lay out manifesto plans to tackle violence against women
  • Greene: Tory downfall due to Findlay and Badenoch’s leadership

Chamberlain: Peach ballot key to holding SNP to account on secrecy and broken promises

Speaking ahead of the SNP’s manifesto launch, Scottish Liberal Democrat deputy leader and campaign chair Wendy Chamberlain MP has urged Scots to use their peach ballot paper to …

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Tom Reeve

Three chords and the truth

By Tom Reeve | Thu 16th April 2026 - 11:58 am

The new Fabian pamphlet, Common Endeavour, has one of the sharpest lines written about populism this year. In chapter 8, Labour MP Liam Byrne borrows the old country music saying that all you need is “three chords and the truth.” Populism works, he argues, because it plays three simple emotional chords: patriotism, nostalgia, and moral combat. Pride, loss, fight. Simple, repeatable, and perfectly tuned to social media algorithms that reward feeling over thought.

He’s right. And he’s honest enough to admit that mainstream politicians have been answering with word salads while populists holler a battle cry. Reform UK doesn’t win arguments. It wins feelings.

But Byrne’s own answer is where it falls short. His formula for beating populism is “optimism plus fairness plus performance.” That’s a strategy memo, not a song. It tells a government what to do. It doesn’t tell a movement what to feel. You can’t knock on a door and sing optimism plus fairness plus performance.

Liberals need our own three chords. Here are mine.

Power. Security. Respect.

Start with power, because that’s where liberals are different. Labour’s instinct is to fix things for people from the centre. Reform’s trick is to offer the feeling of power by handing it to a strongman. One is paternalism. The other is surrender dressed in a flag.

As countless leaders of radical movements have noted, power is not given, it is taken. I believe that’s not only a radical proposition, it’s liberal as well. 

The preamble to our party’s constitution states that power belongs at the lowest level that works. The implication is that the centre must justify each power it possesses, not the other way around.

Yes, the consequences of this are significant at the local level – neighbourhood budgets and planning decisions made by people who live with the outcome. But power isn’t only a local question. 

As a species, we are wealthier than at any point in history, but the people in the bottom half of the economy aren’t feeling it. That’s not a local problem; it’s a national and global failure of power. Who sets wages, who controls housing costs, who decides where investment goes, who writes the rules of the economy, and for whose benefit? 

Liberals may have cracked the local argument. The national one – dispersing economic power, not just political power – is harder. But it matters, and we haven’t begun to answer it seriously.

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Josh Babarinde

100 things @ 100 days

By Josh Babarinde | Thu 16th April 2026 - 9:31 am

Hello lovely Liberal Democrats!

This week, we reached 100 days since I took office as Party President – and what an honour it’s been so far!

I’ve been working with incredible members, activists, councillors, parliamentarians and staff across our party to help us to reach more people – voters, donors, volunteers, media and more – with our liberal message and to reinforce our position as the last line of defence against populism and division in our country.

Below are 100 things that I’ve been doing since I was elected to play my part in that fight as Party president. It’s not an exhaustive list but I hope it gives a flavour of what I’ve been up to!

(PS It’s in a random order, so please don’t read too much into that!)

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Mark Valladares

14-15 April 2016 – the press releases

By Mark Valladares | Wed 15th April 2026 - 11:05 pm
  • Scot Lib Dems comment on Nigel Farage’s visit to Shetland
  • Abysmal A&E figures show SNP need to be removed from government

Scot Lib Dems comment on Nigel Farage’s visit to Shetland

Commenting on Nigel Farage’s flying visit to Shetland, Emma Macdonald Scottish Liberal Democrat candidate said:

Nigel Farage is welcome to visit Shetland the same as any tourist, but folk here will judge him on what he’s actually done for our islands.

Farage was on the fisheries committee in Brussels for years and barely made an appearance – then when there was a big debate on the fishing industry in the UK Parliament, led by

…

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Jack Meredith

Attendance Allowance should not stop at the hospital door

By Jack Meredith | Wed 15th April 2026 - 1:30 pm

My grandfather, or as I affectionately call him, Bampa, is currently in the hospital awaiting urgent heart treatment.

It’s frightening enough on its own. The hospital is 40 minutes away, so I’m relying on phone calls during the day to keep up to date on my bampa, get on with my work day, and keep my family members updated on what the hospital tells me; suffice it to say, it’s a lot.

And then, recently, my mum had a letter. My mum has been told that, due to how long my bampa has been in the hospital, if he is still there by Sunday, 26 April, his Attendance Allowance will stop.

Now, we’re not expecting him to be in there that long, and he should (we hope) be home by the end of the week. But what kind of state treats its citizens like this? A man who has worked his entire life, never complained about the cards he was dealt in life, having lost his wife only a few months ago, is now in the hospital, and the response from the state is, “Yeah, sorry about that, but if you’re there any longer, we’ll punish you.”

It’s one of those moments when the welfare state shows you why, once again, it is not fit for purpose. What should be a humane system built around the realities of illness, frailty and care is just an administrative machine that is constantly scanning for the point at which it decides support no longer counts.

Attendance Allowance is designed to support older people with the extra costs of disability and ill health. It can range from £76.70 to £114.60 per week. But if someone has the misfortune of being ill and being in hospital for 28 days, their support is suspended, and only resumes when they’re back home.

While this makes sense to Whitehall, considering they fund the hospital stay and therefore the benefit is not needed, life is not lived on a spreadsheet.

Extra pressures do not disappear when someone is in the hospital. Families need to travel, buy essentials for the person in the hospital, spend money on food, parking and transport, manage calls and paperwork, chase updates, prepare for discharge, and carry the emotional and practical stresses of caring. Depending on the treatment, the person coming home from the hospital will need more support than before, not less.

This is what makes the rule on Attendance Allowance so cruel. It operates on a fantasy version of illness, one in which the hospital somehow automatically removes the burdens of care, rather than intensifying them.

The impact on Attendance Allowance has a knock-on effect on the carer’s allowance, too. If the Attendance Allowance stops, the linked Carer’s Allowance also stops, triggering a second financial impact on the same family. This is a direct penalty on ill health and care itself, delivered by a system supposedly in place to support both.

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Jenny Wilkinson

Why Birmingham is ready for a Liberal Democrat administration 

By Jenny Wilkinson | Wed 15th April 2026 - 11:28 am

Ed Davey with Lib Dem campaigners in BirminghamBirmingham is at a turning point. After years of Labour failure, a sense of frustration is palpable across the city. A year-long bin strike, which has left streets filthy and strewn with litter, combined with bankruptcy and council tax increases of 24% over 3 years have left residents fed up and looking for an alternative to the failed Labour administration. This widespread discontent has created a unique opportunity for the Lib Dems to provide the leadership that residents are crying out for. With all 101 Birmingham City Council seats up for election on May the 7th, we have the opportunity to make this a reality. 

As a member of Sutton Coldfield local party in Birmingham, I’ve witnessed first-hand voters turning away from Labour and the Conservatives. When Steve Darling MP visited us recently, he found scores of residents looking for an alternative and expressing their support for the Liberal Democrats. They are tired of being let down by failures in local and national government, and they see in us a party that champions local communities. 

Our candidates across the city are finding that the tide is changing towards us and this isn’t just anecdotal. In October we gained a seat from Labour in the Moseley by-election. This win sends a message to the electorate – that the Liberal Democrats are capable of taking on Labour and winning. 

Our leader, Sir Ed Davey, emphasized this last week when he visited Birmingham for the launch of our manifesto stating:

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Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg to give Charles Kennedy Memorial Lecture – how to watch

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 15th April 2026 - 9:52 am

Next Tuesday, 21st April, at the National Liberal Club, Nick Clegg will give the Charles Kennedy Memorial Lecture on the future of Europe organised by The European Movement UK, in association with the National Liberal Club European Forum and Liberal International (BG).

Charles was a lifelong committed European, and Nick started his career working for Leon Brittain when he was an EU Trade Commissioner and was then an MEP.

With the global environment changing beyond recognition, it’s never been more important to think about how Europe can work together and Nick’s contribution to this will be incredibly …

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The Voice

Ed Davey: Hillary Clinton told me to “stand up to bullies” like Reform UK

By The Voice | Tue 14th April 2026 - 4:19 pm

Embed from Getty Images

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