Mark Corner

Andy Burnham’s devolution reforms go only half-way

By Mark Corner | Thu 17th September 2026 - 10:40 am

None of us who remember the terrible time local government endured in the 1980s as budgets were sliced and powers reduced can be unhappy to see greater powers given to local government now. In the 1980s Margaret Thatcher’s government looked across the Thames at the unemployment figures draped over the side of the Greater London Council building, and to her it might as well have been the flag of a foreign power raised over her homeland (reminding her after the Falklands episode that there were ‘enemies within’). Away went the GLC and the metropolitan county councils. In practice it was a time of massive centralisation.

The Lib Dems are right to be concerned about where county councils fit into the picture now with the rise of ‘metro mayors’ and whether there’s too much of an urban takeover, but the move towards more control at local level is a welcome one in principle. However, devolution isn’t just about giving power away. It’s also about sharing power.

I’m not sure that Andy Burnham really understands this, despite his recent meeting with the leaders of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and it is with the ‘nations’ outside England that the danger lies. If you think that all you’ve got to do is give powers away (‘Can we control policing in Wales?’ ‘Yes, maybe we can agree to that’) then you will find that eventually whoever receives additional powers will want more until eventually it seems logical to ask for complete control. I’m not saying that this would be a danger in the case of the English regions. Giving Kim McGuiness a budget over transport policies in the North-East is not likely to lead to a demand for an independent Northumbria. But in the case of those parts of the UK where there are already strong forces calling for full independence, it is arguable that those who say ‘giving some powers away is bound to be a foot in the door leading to demands for more and eventually everything’ have a point.

It is for this reason that devolution must have an element of sharing power as well as giving it away. James Dennison’s recent exploration of governing structures in the UK in Lib Dem Voice talks of a change to the second chamber. He suggests ‘around 300 voting members of the Lords elected by first past the post in territorial constituencies, giving the second chamber a deliberately different mandate rooted in place.’ This would be an excellent development giving the House of Lords a distinctive role in bringing together representatives of the regions and nations. It’s maybe a little like the German ‘Bundesrat’ but it doesn’t have to be the same. James also talks about appointed experts adding to the numbers in the second chamber.

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Tanya Park

Drawing a line on Britain’s extreme wealth problem

By Tanya Park | Wed 16th September 2026 - 1:55 pm

Fifty families in Britain hold as much wealth as 34 million people.

This Autumn Conference, join us for A Just Society’s first fringe event, held jointly with Patriotic Millionaires UK. We’ll be asking what that concentration of wealth does to our politics, our media and our society, and where the line should be drawn.  

It follows Sunday’s debate on Defending Democracy. That motion names billionaires who use money and media to influence British politics as a threat to our democracy, and proposes caps on donations and spending. Our fringe picks up where the motion stops. Capping donations closes one route from wealth to political power. Wealth on this scale has others: owning media companies and platforms, funding think tanks, paying for lobbying and litigation.

Liberals have always been wary of concentrated power in the state. The question on Monday evening is whether we should be as wary of it in private hands.

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Bobby Dean

Bobby Dean writes: The Resilient State: Rethinking fiscal rules for the 21st Century

By Bobby Dean | Wed 16th September 2026 - 11:55 am

The Chancellor faces a difficult Budget.

There is little room to manoeuvre on tax or borrowing. Households and businesses are under enormous pressure. Long-term government borrowing costs have reached their highest level for decades. Yet Britain desperately needs investment.
In an attempt to reassure the markets, John Healey has earnestly pledged his allegiance to the fiscal rules. It’s a 30-year tradition. But, since 2008, Chancellors have increasingly struggled with the choices the rules produce.
We have seen the consequences.

Covid exposed an NHS with too little spare capacity. The energy crisis exposed our dependence on volatile oil markets. The hottest summer ever has demonstrated the threat that global warming poses to our infrastructure.

In an essay published yesterday by the New Economics Foundation, I argue that we need to change the question at the heart of every Budget from “What can we afford to borrow now?” to “What investment do we need to make to be better off tomorrow?”

It’s not an argument for borrowing more. It’s an argument for better spending.

While we must maintain debt discipline through strong rules, there are three fundamental problems with wider fiscal management that I believe we need to fix.

First, is the crude distinction between investment and day-to-day spending. Buying a tank is treated as investment. Training specialists to defend us from cyber attacks is not. We need to broaden how we define investment to recognise the value of people and skills.

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David Vigar

Reform donations row shows how facts get trampled at Westminster

By David Vigar | Wed 16th September 2026 - 10:25 am

“Comment is free, but facts are sacred” wrote The Guardian’s editor CP Scott in 1921. A century and a bit later, the story of Reform UK’s £72 million of donations shows how Westminster has become a battleground of comment where facts get trampled underfoot. 

What are the facts? On 25 March, Steve Reed, then Secretary of State for Housing, Communities & Local Government, announced that there would be “an annual £100,000 cap on total political donations” made by any overseas elector. He said the government would apply the restrictions retrospectively to donations received from that date. The changes would be tabled as amendments to the Representation of the People Bill.  

The letter said that once the law was in force, political parties would have 30 days to return any donations received on or after 25 March.

And what would happen if an overseas elector moved back to the UK? That was cleared up on 6 July when Samantha Dixon, Minister for Elections, announced that any such person would remain subject to the cap “until they have been resident in the UK for a whole calendar year.” 

All pretty clear. The only loose end I can see is that the bill would still allow UK-based donors to donate eye-watering sums and the government is reportedly considering whether to propose a cap on all donations. The Lib Dems have been ahead of the game again in calling for such a cap already.

Meanwhile, months after the proposed law was set out, Reform are claiming  that their £36m donations from Ben Delo and Christopher Harbourne are legitimate. 

Reform’s Richard Tice said: “These donations are made in accordance with the rules and the regulations, and you’ve now got a hyperventilating hypocrisy from the socialists ruining this country, who are trying to change the rules retrospectively, which is it’s not the fair way, it’s not the British way…”

Did you see what he did there? Tice is of course right to say that the donations are in accordance with the current rules. But then he says the government is “trying to change the rules retrospectively” as if they had done this after the Reform donations, rather than before them – and whistles to his fans by ranting about “socialists” and “the British way”.   

The trick is simple. Garnish distortion with a sprig of truth. Then whip up so much heat that emotion drives the story and cold hard facts get left behind. 

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Jack Coulson

The Independent View: Turning back the tide on free speech

By Jack Coulson | Wed 16th September 2026 - 8:55 am

Eagle-eyed Conference goers this year may spot enlarged Brighton beaches, thanks to a scheme extending them to combat coastal erosion.

Dumping tonnes of rocks is hard work, but the simplicity has a certain beauty. Sadly, the tide is not so easily turned on free speech.

We have all seen it. Octogenarians arrested for holding bits of paper, terrifying examples of trials for tweets, and the unedifying spectacle of ‘free speech absolutists’ banning journalists they do not like from events.

Big Brother Watch has just published a major review: Britain’s Free Speech Problem – How growing restrictions are stifling speech online and offline. It highlights issues including a heady mixture of draconian legislation, partisan hypocrisy and an absence of people willing to stand up for the rights of people with whom they do not agree.

Some of these problems are timeless, but technology means some are genuinely new and require new answers.

Until recently, one could straightforwardly argue that people should have access to more information: anything less was censorship. Then people worked out that with the right algorithm, they could convince people to spend hours in bed watching nonsense, 15 seconds at a time.

Effectively infinite information, presented in an order nobody is directly accountable for, with enough flashing light to tempt even the most performative of readers away from their books.

How free is the public discourse if an algorithm chooses what is seen?

For their next trick, the tech bros invented a novel Google search that seems to talk to us and can sort of do many white collar jobs.

We learned something sad – lots of what we thought made us special is easy to mimic. From the good, like creative writing and music, to the bad, like an intern who swears something is true until you make them check their source: AI can do it all.

As the gap between having an idea and executing it is filled by AI, old notions of who is responsible, and accountable, need reevaluating. For years I have tried to rewrite Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours into an album about Brexit. I am sure Claude could do it for me, but that is definitely not ‘me’ doing it.

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James Dennison

Britain has too much government and too little democratic power

By James Dennison | Tue 15th September 2026 - 1:30 pm

Britain has accumulated government without accumulating democratic power. A citizen trying to discover who is responsible for a major decision can now encounter ministers, councils, combined authorities, mayors, regulators, agencies, commissioners and public-private partnerships—often with overlapping responsibilities and no obvious person whom an election can remove. 

This is not simply a problem of having too much government. It is a problem of power becoming difficult to see and therefore difficult to control. The liberal answer is neither centralisation nor another wave of institutional invention, but to make the state smaller where possible, stronger where necessary, and democratic wherever public power is exercised. Ten Liberal Democrat policies could begin that process. 

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The Voice

LibLink: David Howarth – How to stop billionaires buying our politics

By The Voice | Tue 15th September 2026 - 12:00 pm

David HowarthOver on the Democracy For Sale site, former Lib Dem MP for Cambridge and electoral commissioner, David Howarth writes about the problem of big money in British politics and suggests three ways to combat it:

The £72 million donation by two crypto-billionaires to Reform UK, a party that just happens to have promoted tax cuts for crypto-billionaires, has prompted some previously complacent political commentators to notice the enormous flaws in Britain’s political funding regime. Those flaws are long-standing and simply stated.

No cap exists on donations to political parties and existing controls on political spending are riddled with loopholes. For example, spending caps only apply in the year that precedes a general election and they fail to include obviously political expenditure, such as employing national party staff.

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The Voice

LibLink: Anna Sabine, the ‘Whispering’ Lib Dem MP – “Do I seem weak now?

By The Voice | Tue 15th September 2026 - 10:30 am

There’s the heartrending story of Anna Sabine MP over on PoliticsHome’s The House section. Anna tells their Ben Gartside how emergency surgery led to the loss of her voice. The Frome and East Somerset MP says she is returning to Parliament more determined than ever to be heard:

When Anna Sabine finished a routine media appearance on Politics Live in the spring, she returned to her office and received an email that would prove life-changing.

Her parliamentary assistant warned her that they had been sent a “really weird” email, and they couldn’t be sure it was legitimate.

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Larry Ngan

Foreign interference in British politics: How the Liberal Democrats man meet the challenge

By Larry Ngan | Tue 15th September 2026 - 9:08 am

The Brexit referendum was a watershed moment in British politics. Ten years on, the British political landscape is still very much carved out between ‘Remain’ and ‘Leave’. Among Remainers, there are also beliefs that the campaign was heavily affected by influence from Russia and far-right figures in the United States. Nigel Farage, one of the leading figures in the Brexit campaign, was recently involved in an alleged case concerning unsolicited donations, and allegations about Reform UK’s links with Russia and the Trump Administration continue to make newspaper headlines.

At the same time, far left politics is similarly highly susceptible to disinformation campaigns. Let us look at China and George Galloway’s campaign as an example. Mr. Galloway hosted ‘Taiwan Untangled’, a documentary TV programme broadcast by China Global Television Network (CGTN). The series blatantly skewed the wording of the United Nations Resolution 2758. That resolution makes no mention of Taiwan’s sovereignty, let alone China’s claim on Taiwan, and yet China tries claim it does through misrepresentation. In effect, firstly, CGTN has used Galloway as a speaker from the UK to try to show its citizens that Europeans support Beijing’s views. And, secondly, the CCP has sought to promote its ‘One China policy’ in Europe.

But mere suspicion is not healthy for a democracy. We must rise to the challenge posed the breadth and depth of foreign interference in British politics.

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Mathew Hulbert

Mathew on Monday: It’s time to take big money out of British politics

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 14th September 2026 - 5:02 pm

If ever there were a moment to have a serious conversation about how we fund our politics, this is it.

In the space of just 48 hours, Reform UK received an extraordinary £72 million from two billionaire donors – £36 million apiece from crypto entrepreneurs Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne. Let me be clear: my argument isn’t that Reform should be singled out for rules that don’t apply to everybody else. The problem is the system itself.

At present, there is no overall limit on the amount a permissible donor can give to a political party. That means our democracy remains vulnerable to the simple fact that somebody with an enormous bank balance can attempt to wield a financial and potential political influence unavailable to the overwhelming majority of citizens. That cannot be healthy.

I believe the answer is a proper system of State funding of political parties, coupled with strict limits on large private donations. Yes, I can already hear the objection: why should taxpayers fund political parties they don’t support? But democracy isn’t free. We already publicly fund elements of our politics, including policy development grants and parliamentary support such as Short Money. The principle has therefore already been established.

A properly designed system could allocate funding according to electoral support while retaining a modest role for membership fees and individual donations. It would mean parties spending less time courting wealthy benefactors and more time trying to persuade voters. And it would help to create something liberals should instinctively support: a more level political playing field. Democracy should ultimately be a contest of ideas, values and visions for our country’s future. It should never be a contest to see which political party can attract the billionaire with the biggest chequebook.

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Josh Matthews

The liberalism we need: a platform for people to thrive and live their version of a best life

By Josh Matthews | Sun 13th September 2026 - 10:30 am

We need a single guiding point that policy, communication, and a revitalised brand can flow from. Without losing the breadth of values that makes us strong

Most liberals and Liberal Democrats have instincts – and often detailed, powerful, personal articulations – for why they are liberal and/or Lib Dems. Our constitution is also an impressive illustration, as is the history of liberal ideas and achievements. We have many pillars: internationalism, environmentalism, liberty, equality, community, and more – all working together. But that breadth which is so often a strength also presents a struggle: communicating a single, clear vision or “north star” that means the public instinctively and immediately know who we are and what we stand for. 

What liberals and Liberal Democrats often lack is a single guiding beacon for both storytelling and policymaking. 

The idea of a platform – for every individual to thrive and live their own version of a best life –   is increasingly my own personal way of understanding my progressive/social liberal politics… as well as what policy and decision making can ultimately strive toward. It works well on the doorstep. But that needs a conversation to hold long enough that the platform idea becomes natural enough to weave in.

There’s something about the platform that still isn’t quite boiled down enough to make me confident in it as the finished idea. That’s where I’d love some help from anyone who either resonates with or sees the problem in this idea – alongside everyone who has already helped shape it, of course – thank you and we’ll talk more in Brighton! 

A single framing for liberalism: A platform to live your version of a best life.

From that platform comes three core concepts: freedom, fairness, and opportunity. From these our broader value set and policy can flow in all its forms.

  • Meaningful freedom. 

A platform sees freedom really mean something. That meaningful freedom must come from a solid foundation (NOT a safety net for when something goes wrong) that includes health, housing, environment, purpose, political voice, community, education, and all the elements that allow individuals and communities to thrive under their own definitions.

  • Freedom in a fair society that works especially for the least advantaged.

A platform means a fair society – and goodness knows that could be defined in many ways. For me, and I see for many liberals, fairness in many ways means the version of society that works best for the least advantaged. A society that you would think is fair not knowing who you were in it (the “veil of ignorance”). 

  • Genuine equality of opportunity, not just theoretical opportunity written in law.

Opportunity that feels real. Underpinned by all the foundations of meaningful freedom… again: health, housing, environment, purposeful work, political voice, community, education, and more.

What a platform is not…

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 13th September 2026 - 8:30 am

Saudi Arabia

Since the Strait of Hormuz largely closed, Saudi Arabia has increasing amounts of its oil through a pipeline to its oil terminal in Yanbu on the Red Sea. This way they can transport their Asian-bound products through the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean and beyond.

That route goes past Yemen and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait  which is another one of the sea-going world’s chokepoints. On Thursday it was announced that the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen have taken control of the city and seaport of Mocha and much of the shoreline of the Red Sea near the Bab el-Mandeb strait. The oil price jumped to $109 a barrel.

Control of the Red Sea has repercussions beyond the price of oil and fertiliser. Sandwiched between the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean, it links Europe and Asia. Twelve to 15 percent of the world’s maritime trade sails through the Red Sea. All of it is within easy range of any missiles or drones on the Yemeni side of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. That trade is valued at over $1 trillion a year.

The Houthis are in a struggle against the Saudi–backed Yemeni government who told Reuters this week that hundreds of officers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are currently in Yemen directing the attack on Mocha and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

According to CNN, more than 100 US military advisers are in Saudi Arabia as part of a new joint forces command, providing the Saudis with intelligence and helping them find Houthi targets. Thus, the war widens and escalates. What began around the Strait of Hormuz is acquiring another front—and another strategic chokepoint.

North Korea

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un  has commissioned two new 5,000-ton destroyers. They will form, he says, part of the country’s “nuclear counteraction system.” The ships have vertical launch systems and are assessed to be capable of firing cruise missiles such as the Hwasal-2, which North Korea claims can carry nuclear warheads. Pyongyang is also developing an 8,700-ton nuclear-powered submarine, whose hull Kim inspected in late 2025.

The North Koreans have come up with the technology amazingly quickly, which is why many intelligence analysts are detecting the Russian hand behind these developments. Kim has sent an estimated 15,000 North Korean troops to fight in the Ukraine War as well as thousands of tons of munitions according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, up to another 50,000 North Koreans are expected.

The technology to build a nuclear-armed navy is likely to be part of the bodies for technology agreement between Moscow and Pyongyang.

Donald Trump responded to the new North Korean threat by drastically curtailing and postponing the annual “Freedom Shield” US-South Korean-Japan military exercises. Originally scheduled for 17-27 August. They did not start until 7 September

South Korea’s response to these machinations is interesting. Seoul is moving towards its own nuclear-powered submarines. President Lee Jae Myung’s government has formally advanced the Jang Bogo N nuclear-powered submarine programme. These would be conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarines. They will not, however, be armed with nuclear missiles.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: West Bank Settler Sanctions

By Tom Arms | Sat 12th September 2026 - 9:37 am

Competing demographic trends inside Israel and its Western traditional supporters in are stacked against the Jewish state.

This week’s round of British-led sanctions against goods produced by West Bank settlers is a recognition of changing Western attitudes towards Israel.

Democracies by their very nature are dominated by short-term electoral cycles of two, four or five years. Demographic attitudinal changes, on the other hand, run over decades. Governments can postpone responding to the demographic realities because the electoral penalty is initially small. Then, quite suddenly, the accumulated change becomes impossible to ignore. Especially if there is a catalyst such as Gaza and the Iran War.

Israel was founded by a political elite with broadly European social-democratic institutions. In the first decades of its existence, Western publics — particularly after the Holocaust and during wars in which Israel appeared to be the vulnerable underdog — identified strongly with it. Living on an Israeli kibbutz became one of the “IN” ways of spending the summer or gap year.

But Israel also changed as its demographic make-up became less European  and more Asian, African and home-grown. These Israelis grew up on the constant shadow of war and they became preoccupied with security and nationalism and increasingly distrustful of Palestinians, Arabs and Iran. Young people in the West became more aware of human-rights-based issues and the Palestinians.

During the 1967 Six-day War a Gallup poll showed that 56 percent of Americans backed Israel. Only four percent supported the Arab cause. During the 1973 Yom Kippur War American support was up to 54 percent. Support for the Arabs remained in single figures.

The arrival of Benjamin Netanyahu and a shift towards more right-wing, nationalistic and security-focused policies started a shift in Western attitudes. In 2010 America’s favourable attitudes towards Israel dropped to 40 percent. The drop was even more marked in Europe. Only 17 percent of Britons expressed support for Israel in 2010. In France the figure was 20 percent and in Canada 23 percent.

After Gaza and the Iran War the drop is more acute. In June 2026, American support for Israel had dropped to 37 percent for Americans and 25 percent among the British. But, more important, was the generational gap because that is the best indicator of future trends. In 2026, among 18 to 34 year olds, 23 percent expressed support for Israel while the figure for the 50-plus generation was 49 percent. In Britain the figureswere16 percent and 30 percent respectively.

Polls in Israel reflect a markedly different picture. Only 13 percent of Israeli Jews 18-34 supported a detailed two-state peace package solution compared to 40 percent for the over 55’s. The disparity is mirrored in issues such as Gaza, the Lebanon and Iran.

In Israel the demographic trends are moving in opposite directions from that of young Western voters. In the West the young especially are becoming increasingly critical of Israel, while young Jewish Israelis are generally more nationalistic, dismissive of the two-state solution, tougher on security issues and more hawkish  than their parents.

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George Cunningham

Recollections of 9/11

By George Cunningham | Fri 11th September 2026 - 5:29 pm

George Cunningham was present in New York on 9/11. Here are his personal recollections of what happened taken from his book, “Journey to Become a Diplomat” ISBN 978-0871242136

At first, I did not know anything had happened. It was one of those typically summery Septembers in New York in 2001, and I was attending as an EU diplomat the traditional international prayer breakfast at the start of a new United Nations (UN) General Assembly. Mr. Hang Seung-soo of South Korea stood up to make his speech. There was a hush to hear his words, but something made my ears prick up, …

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Dominic Sokalski

Why we need a Trade NATO

By Dominic Sokalski | Fri 11th September 2026 - 3:31 pm

Mark Carney was right: if middle powers aren’t at the table, they’re on the menu. A credible ‘Trade NATO’ would make the great powers think twice.

At Davos earlier this year, Mark Carney delivered a stark warning: the rules-based international order no longer works and a new architecture is needed. We are living through a “rupture”, not a transition, in which great powers increasingly use tariffs, supply chains and economic dependence as tools of coercion.

At the Lowy Institute in March, Carney put more flesh on the bones. He called for a “dense web” of middle-power partnerships and “variable geometry”: different coalitions working together on different problems, from AI and critical minerals to trade and supply chains.

But he stopped short of proposing a standing pact committing those countries to defend each other against economic coercion. I think that matters.

In 2023, the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan signed a joint declaration pledging to deter and address economic coercion. Three years later, Canada is finding out the limits of political declarations when governments change.

If Carney’s rupture is real, we need something legally binding with teeth.

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Alan Dai

‘I Fear a Target on My Back’ — A Liberal Democrat’s fight for Hong Kong’s freedom

By Alan Dai | Fri 11th September 2026 - 1:22 pm

Hong Kong, September 2019. I was on the streets every other day, having just joined the Protect the Children Action group (PtCA). It was the height of the pro-democracy protests. The Hong Kong police shot two people in the eye, a nurse and a journalist, and tear-gassed care homes full of elderly residents. Hong Kongers fought back. Young people may have been the backbone of the protest, but the whole of society mobilised. Alongside those marching peacefully, others handed out food and drink, and the Methodist Church in Wan Chai opened its doors to everyone, offering shelter and comfort.

PtCA was made up of older people who could not run as fast as the young, or whose other commitments kept them from the frontlines. Yet we stood at the forefront of the protest, facing the police directly. One of our members was beaten by more than 40 police officers in a back alley. We formed human chains, trying to separate police from civilians. We stood as lookouts, warning people of approaching police so they could decide whether to stay or go. We made sure the young stragglers — one as young as 13 years old — were not picked up.

This culminated in the university sieges. After a day of fighting at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, I remember the quiet that followed; the ashes on the ground still smelled of tear gas, assaulting my senses. The quiet sunrise over the mountains meant we had made it through another day. A week later, at the Polytechnic University, things were more desperate. I saw a girl curled up behind the entrance to the MTR (Hong Kong’s metro), screaming, as a water cannon hit the building at full force. That was my protest.

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Mark Valladares

10 September 2026 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Thu 10th September 2026 - 10:45 pm
  • Murray to push for key figures to attend and Scottish Affairs committee to exert its full powers
  • Scottish Government flounders over ferries again
  • Parliament backs Scot Lib Dems for more generous community benefit from energy projects

Murray to push for key figures to attend and Scottish Affairs committee to exert its full powers

Following on from yesterday’s announcement that the UK Parliament’s Scottish Affairs Committee will launch inquiries into the dual role of the Lord Advocate, and into the financial regulation of political parties in Scotland, Liberal Democrat Scottish Affairs spokesperson and committee member Susan Murray MP has called for senior SNP and Scottish Government figures to give evidence as part of the inquiry and said that the committee must use its full powers to ensure key figures attend and key documentation is available for members to review.

Ms Murray said:

The Scottish Government has continually refused to display transparency around the Murrell scandal, it is now up to the Scottish Affairs Committee to gather the appropriate evidence to fully scrutinise what happened.

Senior SNP and Scottish Government figures involved must be summoned to give evidence as part of the inquiry in order to fully assess whether our systems of governance are working.

Just to give one example, was it appropriate for the Lord Advocate to tell the First Minister about the charges against his party’s former chief executive weeks before the public knew?

So far the Scottish Government have been as obstructive as can be so I want to see the Scottish Affairs Committee use its full powers to ensure key figures attend and key documentation is available for members to review.

It’s time for a thorough reassessment of the dual role of the Lord Advocate and into the financial regulation of political parties in Scotland. Given how much money was embezzled from under the noses of SNP members, I suspect many of them will quietly accept that this is long overdue.

Scottish Government flounders over ferries again

At First Minister’s Questions, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has today urged John Swinney to finally extend ferries compensation to coastal towns, and challenged him on why Stephen Flynn, as Transport Secretary, didn’t know anything about a significant incident involving a CalMac vessel.

During the exchange, the First Minister did not acknowledge that his own government had this week voted for a Scottish Liberal Democrat amendment calling for the Islands Resilience Fund “to offer more funding, and sooner, to both island businesses and the coastal communities that have been consistently excluded from the scheme.”

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Mary Reid

Sarah Olney bids to become candidate for Mayor of London

By Mary Reid | Thu 10th September 2026 - 5:03 pm

Today Sarah Olney MP officially launched her bid to become the Liberal Democrat candidate in the London Mayoral election, which will take place in May 2028.

In her campaign to be selected as the candidate she stated that these are her priorities for London:

  • Making London the most business-friendly city in the world: By harnessing the power of London’s unparalleled business community and creating a Deputy Mayor for Business, elected by a consortium of business leaders based in London.
  • Improving the quality of London’s housing: Empowering renters, landlords and developers to raise housing standards; to boost energy efficiency, tackle mould & damp and guarantee accessibility.
  • Building more homes across London: Challenging Khan’s self-admitted failure on housing, by building more homes for the communities that need them, including through community-led housing, estate regeneration, and reviewing affordability and fast track requirements to bring in sustainable investment.
  • Connecting London with improved transport links: Halting cuts to bus services and tackling delays, while bringing all river crossings under a single strategic authority so vital arteries like Hammersmith Bridge are never again left to fall into disrepair and that important links like Canary Wharf-Rotherhithe crossing are delivered.
  • A safer city for all: Reversing the closure of police station front counters and putting victims back at the centre of policing culture, with a prompt, transparent and accountable process for every Londoner who reports a crime or antisocial behaviour.

Website: www.sarah4london.com/

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Jonathan Brown

Making the most of the Government’s belated action on illegal Israeli settlements

By Jonathan Brown | Thu 10th September 2026 - 9:28 am

Most of the country clearly believes that the Government’s newly announced actions to be taken to curb the illegal Israeli settlements are overdue… but very welcome nonetheless. It’s not universal, with the Board of Deputies of British Jews condemning the change, but liberal Jewish groups, such as Yachad, made the obvious but important point that “These new policies do not target Israel; they target the occupation. They draw a clear distinction between the legitimacy of the State of Israel and the settlement enterprise which is illegal under international law.”

As a Liberal Democrat, and as Vice Chair of the Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine, I am really pleased that the Government finally appears to be taking strong action in support of international law, bringing it broadly into line with Lib Dem policy that’s been in place since 2021. I’m proud that Liberal Democrats have led the way on taking a tough, principled stand that respects the rights and aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians, while expecting and demanding that both sides abide by their obligations under international law.

I’m saddened however that the media and the public have so little awareness of our position, despite the best efforts of our Parliamentarians in the Houses of Commons and the Lords. I regret to say that I believe our failure to take this message strongly out of parliament and to the people has contributed to us underperforming in opinion polls and elections over the last year and more.

Both for reasons of seizing the moment politically – doing what we can to advance a just peace – AND to boost our standing with the public, I think it’s crucial that we take the opportunity that our Autumn Conference provides, not only to debate Israel-Palestine but to further advance party policy.

The Lib Dem Friends of Palestine have submitted an emergency motion addressing the role of the settlements and settlers in the collapse of the two state solution and making life – obviously and deliberately – unbearable for Palestinians. The deadline for submissions was prior to the Government’s announcements, but I’m pleased nevertheless that we correctly anticipated most of what Miliband introduced. We welcome the Government’s actions but recognise that it will all come down to implementation and our motion sets out in some detail how Liberal Democrats should engage constructively in the process of designing and enforcing the rules. Our motion also goes further in a few places where it would be useful to do so, namely calling for the suspension of all military cooperation and the UK-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement while Israel remains in defiance of international law with regards the illegal settlements. We also propose exploring a programme of progressively banning travel to the UK by Israeli settlers, beginning with the most extreme.

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Mark Valladares

9 September 2026 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Wed 9th September 2026 - 10:30 pm
  • Scottish Lib Dems secure £7.6 million in neurodevelopmental support as government announces funding
  • Transport Secretary was “oblivious” about escape of flammable gas on embattled Arran ferry
  • Scottish Government must respect will of parliament after it backs ferry compensation for coastal areas
  • Murray backs parliamentary inquiries into party funding and Lord Advocate role in wake of Murrell embezzlement

Scottish Lib Dems secure £7.6 million in neurodevelopmental support as government announces funding

Responding to the Scottish Government announcing £7.6 million in funding to expand neurodevelopmental support, money which was secured by the Scottish Liberal Democrats in their negotiations during the 2026/27 budget, Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Adam Harley MSP said:

Scottish Liberal Democrats will always be the party of mental health, which is why we worked hard to persuade the government to make this important investment, and I am very pleased to see it being delivered today.

This money has the potential to make a big difference for children and families across the country, making sure that services get the funding they need to provide support.

From the opposition benches, with our newly expanded group of MSPs, we will continue to be the grown-ups of this parliament, providing strong and effective criticism, hunting for agreement where we can, to get things done for the people of Scotland.

Transport Secretary was “oblivious” about escape of flammable gas on embattled Arran ferry

Scottish Liberal Democrat Willie Rennie has said it is “unacceptable” that SNP Transport Secretary, Stephen Flynn, only became aware of a sudden and uncontrolled release of highly flammable methane gas on the Glen Sannox ferry, which occurred last year, when the MSP challenged him about it this morning.

During a meeting of the Scottish Parliament’s Transport Committee, Willie Rennie asked Mr Flynn whether he had been briefed about BBC reporting that highly flammable gas had escaped from the Glen Sannox in June last year while 82 passengers were on board.

In response, Mr Flynn said: “no”.

Mr Flynn also said that he would have to “familiarise himself” with the incident, and that he was not listening or watching the news before attending the meeting of the committee.

Director of Ferries and Ports for Transport Scotland, Chris Wilcock, also failed to provide an explanation for what had happened.

700kg of the gas, enough to fill a four-bedroom house, was vented from the side of the Glen Sannox for 12 minutes as it was sailing from Arran to the mainland. CalMac described it as a “critical failure”.

Commenting after the meeting of the committee, Mr Rennie said:

This was a significant incident involving an uncontrolled escape of highly flammable gas, on board a ferry that has been troubled for quite some time and which was carrying 82 passengers.

The Transport Secretary promised to be transparent, but it has taken a year before the public was told about this incident.

The details of what had happened were all over our national broadcaster from midnight last night, but Mr Flynn seemed to be oblivious.

It is unacceptable that the Transport Secretary did not know about this incident. It cannot be allowed to happen again.

Scottish Government must respect will of parliament after it backs ferry compensation for coastal areas

Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP for the Highlands and Islands Morven-May MacCallum has today said that the SNP government must now “do the right thing” and compensate coastal communities impacted by ferry disruption, after parliament backed a Scottish Liberal Democrat amendment calling for this funding.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dem Women chair Donna Harris writes to Reform over violent ejection of woman protester

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 9th September 2026 - 9:18 am

There’s not going to be anything to please liberals or progressives at a Reform conference, but what happened to a woman protester should disgust everyone, not matter their politics.

From LBC:

One woman who stood up to disrupt the speech can be seen in video footage being removed from the room. While several security guards remove her, members of the crowd appear to grab at her face and hair, and hit her with a walking stick.

The woman told LBC: “Yesterday I was hit and grabbed by the hair and by my jaw by attendees at the Reform UK conference after calling out Nigel Farage for being a conman during his keynote speech.

“All of this was just 2 hours after Sarah Pochin announced Women for Reform, cynically claiming that migrants are the ones women like me should be afraid of, as opposed to members of their own political party.

“I think it’s dangerous that Reform cannot be trusted to hold their members accountable.

“Nigel Farage himself, as well as members of the audience, are inciting this violence by celebrating assaults like the one I experienced.

“In fact, this morning Lee Anderson joked, joked about it by offering to buy a new cane for the man who assaulted me, which I think is simply pathetic.

Donna Harris chairs the official organisation representing women in the Liberal Democrats, Lib Dem Women. She has written to Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick to express LDW’s “disgust” at the way the woman was treated and how the men in Reform have reacted since to minimise and trivialise the incident, with Lee Anderson offering to buy their delegate a new walking stick.

First page of Donna Harris's letter to Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick

Letter from Donna Harris to Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick Page 2

The full text is below.

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Mark Valladares

8 September 2026 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Tue 8th September 2026 - 11:59 pm
  • Dunlop responds to embargoed PISA report
  • Scottish Lib Dems seek urgent meeting with Justice Secretary over violence against women
  • PISA shows almost two thirds of pupils suffering from lack of assisting staff
  • Harley: A&E waits are totally unacceptable
  • Chou Turvey comments on 14% rise in domestic abuse charges reported to Crown Office

Dunlop responds to embargoed PISA report

Responding to the embargoed news that Scotland has recorded its worst ever results for reading and maths in the PISA international comparison of 91 countries’ education systems, Scottish Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Duncan Dunlop MSP said:

Once the best in the world, Scottish education just isn’t what it used to be. Under the SNP, our education system has tumbled down the rankings, lagging behind England on every measure of performance. This report makes for brutal reading.

Pupils with additional support needs aren’t having their needs met, too many pupils are frequently absent, and classrooms are more violent than ever before.

Pupils, parents and teachers feel let down. They deserve better.

Scottish Liberal Democrats want to give real power to schools, head teachers and communities because they know what pupils in their area need best. That’s on top of our plans to end the use of short-term and zero hours contracts for teachers and recruit 2,000 more pupil support assistants so that children who need extra help are able to receive it.

All of this is how we can give every child the best start in life and get Scottish education back to its best.

Scottish Lib Dems seek urgent meeting with Justice Secretary over violence against women

Scottish Liberal Democrat justice spokesperson Yi-pei Chou Turvey MSP has today sought an urgent meeting with Neil Gray, Scottish Justice Secretary, after failing to receive a response to her party’s letter to the First Minister about tackling violence against women, which was sent more than two months ago.

In her letter to Neil Gray, the Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP said there is a “growing backlog of promised measures that seem nowhere close to being delivered”.

During First Minister’s Questions, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton called on John Swinney to act with urgency to tackle violence against women and girls. He said that it should not take victims, including those like Vikki Soloman and Stacy Hunter, to lose their lives before proper action is taken.

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Sarah Dyke

Somerset’s farmers are on the front line of climate change

By Sarah Dyke | Tue 8th September 2026 - 8:37 am

This article is one of a set of essays about climate adaptation being published by the Green Alliance today. There is a launch event with the Environment All Party Parliamentary Group today.

Somerset is on the front line of climate change. Agricultural land makes up 66 per cent of the county and 91 per cent of the Glastonbury and Somerton constituency, so it is key to the nation’s food production. Without urgent intervention, the UK’s food security is under immense threat.

The scale of the problem is clear from the extreme weather we’ve experienced in 2026 alone. When Storm Chandra hit at the end of January, Somerset was battered by 50 millimetres of intense rain falling on already saturated ground, causing devastating floods. Six months later, on 25 June, the UK’s record for the hottest June day was broken in the Somerset town of Yeovilton, with temperatures reaching 36.4 degrees Celsius. This closed schools, put pressure on the NHS and led to drought stressed fields and compromised livestock welfare.

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Mark Valladares

7 September 2026 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Mon 7th September 2026 - 11:35 pm
  • FM confirms government will put forward options to include MSPs in child protection scheme
  • Chancellor’s Speech – Wales still an afterthought to Labour
  • David Chadwick Launches Bid to Protect Cross-Border Patients

FM confirms government will put forward options to include MSPs in child protection scheme

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has today said that the Scottish Government must press ahead with measures to ensure that MSPs are subject to the same child protection and vulnerable adult checks as teachers and social workers.

In Scotland, Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) checks are a legal requirement for anyone with a regulated role, including teachers, social workers and sports coaches.

Failing these checks could mean being barred from regulated roles with children, regulated roles with adults or from both types of regulated roles.

However, an MSP is not a regulated role, meaning members do not presently have to complete PVG checks.

Scottish Liberal Democrats have been campaigning for many years for MSPs to be subject to the checks.

In a letter to the party, First Minister John Swinney has now announced that:

The government is preparing information to be provided to the Parliament for consideration on the disclosure system, the PVG scheme and options available in relation to elected representatives.

Mr Cole-Hamilton said:

MSPs regularly work with children and vulnerable adults in the course of their duties but are subject to none of the checks that a teacher or social worker would be.

Self-policing, which is what Scottish political parties have so far relied upon, simply doesn’t cut it.

We need to have measures in place that will directly prevent those working in politics from using their status to manipulate, target and exploit vulnerable people.

I’m glad that at last the Scottish Government are listening to Scottish Liberal Democrat proposals and I would urge the First Minister to ensure that they are swiftly passed into law.

My party is here to get things done, and making our politics a safer and better place with fewer scandals is a part of that effort.

Chancellor’s Speech – Wales still an afterthought to Labour

Responding to Chancellor John Healey’s speech on growth in Coventry this morning, David Chadwick MP, Welsh Liberal Democrat Westminster spokesperson, said:

The Chancellor talks about delivering growth in every postcode, but once again Wales appears to be an afterthought.

While the new partnership with the Cardiff Capital Region is welcome, there is no new guaranteed funding or projects for Cardiff or Wales attached to today’s announcement.

Wales has been shortchanged for too long, missing out on billions in rail investment and receiving a disproportionately low share of research and development funding.

These structural issues need to be addressed if we are serious about unlocking Wales’ economic potential.

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Mathew Hulbert

Mathew on Monday: Local Government Reorganisation review welcome

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 7th September 2026 - 8:00 pm

Angela Rayner’s announcement of a pause and rethink on much of the Government’s local government reorganisation is welcome. For months, those of us who believe passionately in genuinely local government have watched with increasing concern as plans have developed which would abolish district and Borough councils in large swathes of England and replace them with March larger, more remote unitary authorities.

Today offers an opportunity to think again.

District and Borough Councils are at the heart of the communities they serve. They empty our bins, decide planning applications, support our town centres, provide leisure facilities, put on community events, and deal with many of the everyday issues which determine how people feel about the places where they live. And, importantly, they are genuinely local. Residents know their council. The best Councillors know their patches. Decisions can be taken by people who understand the towns and villages affected by them. That matters.

The previous direction of travel risked replacing these genuinely local councils with enormous authorities covering vast geographical areas, with the centre of decision-making potentially many miles away from many of the communities served. Calling something ‘local government’ does not automatically make it local. As Liberal Democrats we understand this better than most. Localism is fundamental to liberalism. Power should be exercised as close as practically possible to the people affected by it, rather than constantly being dragged upwards into ever larger institutions.

There is also no hiding from the fact that district and Borough councils are places where Lib Dems have often prospered electorally. That is not an accident. Our politics works best when it is rooted in communities: councillors knocking on doors, listening to residents and fighting for improvements street by street and neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

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Mark Valladares

Labour’s Local Government Reform hits a roadblock…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 7th September 2026 - 2:42 pm

For those of us in local government at whatever tier, the Government’s proposals for local government reform, requiring the abolition of principal authorities across England and their replacement with a smaller number of unitary authorities, have caused much activity.

But the news emerging that the proposals are to be suspended and, in some cases, scrapped, will come as a huge surprise to many. We’re waiting for an official response from the Party but, in the meantime, Justin Griggs, head of communications at the National Association of Local Councils, writes:

Based on information released ahead of the statement, decisions relating to reorganisation in

…

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Michal Simon

Reform is winning because liberal Britain is not listening to its own society

By Michal Simon | Mon 7th September 2026 - 11:48 am

Liberal Democrats will not stop Reform by warning people about it. To understand why people listen, we must understand what Reform offers that too many feel they no longer get from us.

We have spent years failing young men — and by the time many reached adulthood, they had already spent years being failed as boys, especially when they were white and poor. Reform has noticed. It is turning our blindness into political support.

Education shows how early that failure begins. Boys fall behind from the start, are heavily overrepresented in special educational needs, more likely to be suspended or excluded, and less likely to enter higher education. A 2026 study by George Leckie and Konstantina Maragkou found teachers systematically predicted lower grades for boys than comparable girls, even after controlling for later achievement. An Ofqual review found bias favouring girls or against boys more often than the opposite.

If this evidence concerned girls, we would call it a gender-equality problem. When it affects boys, we hesitate. DfE data make that hesitation impossible to justify: 44% of White British boys on free school meals are identified as having SEN; boys account for 70.7% of pupils with Education, Health and Care plans; among White British pupils on free school meals, only 13% of young men enter higher education by 19, compared with 21% of young women.

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The Voice

Demand for action over 100,000 “horror” sewage spills

By The Voice | Sun 6th September 2026 - 10:00 pm

Scottish Liberal Democrat environment spokesperson Sanne Dijkstra-Downie has today written to the Cabinet Secretary Gillian Martin demanding that the SNP start taking the sewage crisis seriously as new Scottish Water monitoring revealed that sewage discharges last year were four times as high as previously recorded.

This comes after Scottish Water published data from 1,009 newly installed sewage overflow monitors, which means annual monitoring data is now available for 30% of sites, compared to 6% in previous years.

Figures published by the government-owned water company earlier this week show that in 2025 alone:

  • 100,041 discharges were logged, up from 24,398 incidents in 2024 –

…

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 6th September 2026 - 9:30 am

Texas

Watch Texas. Especially watch the Senate race between Democrat James Talarico and Trump-backed Republican Ken Paxton.

Texas is a bright-red Republican state. Its Stetson-wearing inhabitants openly carry guns on their hips and year after year return a far-right Republican governor and legislature. A Democrat has not won a Senate seat since 1988.

For that reason, the prestigious election-watching Cook Report has consistently classed Texas as “lean Republican.” It has recently, however, changed its classification to a “toss-up.”

A big part of the change is cash. In America advertising wins votes. Advertising costs money so elections usually go to the candidate who has raised the most money. So far Talarico has raised $68.6 million—seven times the paltry $7.5 million raised by Paxton.

Texas’s other Senator, Republican Ted Cruz, has publicly said he is worried. So has Senate Majority leader John Thune. The reason for their concern is that holding Texas is now seen as vital if the Republicans want to retain control of the Senate.

Republicans are already under pressure in Maine, Michigan and Ohio, while Alaska and Iowa have also moved into toss-up territory. Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take control. If they can make the expected gains elsewhere, Texas could become the seat that tips the balance. If that happens then bright red Texas is all that stands in the way of a Democrat-controlled Senate, and, at the moment, opinion polls range from a dead heat to a slight lead for Talarico.

Paxton desperately needs money, and it may be riding over the horizon next week in the form of Donald Trump. The President’s MAGA Inc. Super PAC is sitting on a staggering $403.45 million. Even a fraction of that could transform Paxton’s campaign. Elon Musk has already started the cavalry charge: his America PAC has spent nearly $250,000 supporting Paxton.

Next week Trump rides into Dallas for the Republican Party’s first mid-term convention. It would be the perfect stage on which to announce a major financial intervention. The problem is that Trump has so far proved remarkably reluctant to open his enormous political wallet for other Republican candidates. But if he lets Paxton go under, he could help lose the Senate as well as the House.

United States

This week a new set of US tariffs took effect. They range from just under 25 percent to 100 percent and have been slapped on the importation of drones.

The official reason for the tariffs is national security. In the normal course of events this explanation would have been accepted without question. Drones have become an essential part of the country’s defence network and currently a big chunk of America’s drones come from China.

But there is much, much more to the story and it involves Eric Trump and Don Trump Jr who stand to financially benefit—big time—by the tariffs.

But there is much more to the story. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. have investments linked to four US-based drone manufacturers — Anduril, Unusual Machines, Powerus and XTEND — all operating in a sector that stands to benefit from the new tariffs. Donald Trump Jr. became a strategic adviser to Unusual Machines in 2024 and was awarded 200,000 shares for his services, worth roughly $1 million at the time of a Forbes valuation in 2025. After the tariffs were announced the share price of Unusual Machines jumped 24 percent.

The potential conflict of interest has already attracted political scrutiny. A group of Democratic legislators led by Senator Elizabeth Warren has asked the Pentagon’s Inspector General to investigate 15 defence companies backed by funds associated with the Trump sons. According to the Washington Post, those companies have received at least $3.2 billion in federal contracts, investments and loans.

France

This week French President Emmanuel Macron crossed the English Channel (which the French call La Manche, or “The Sleeve”), to open the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition at the British Museum.

He then travelled across London town to Downing Street to become Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s first foreign visitor. The visit had major symbolic as well as practical reasons.

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Rosemary Runswick

Why Holborn and St Pancras deserves our all

By Rosemary Runswick | Sat 5th September 2026 - 2:35 pm

It is no secret that Liberal Democrats have become one of the first and foremost Parties in Local Government, having consistently made gains for the last seven years of Local Elections and this strategy was successful in giving us 72 MPs in 2024. But one place where we have suffered a great absence of success has been in Parliamentary by-elections, where we haven’t made a gain since 2023. This is obviously bad for a few reasons, by-elections often indicate loudly and clearly to the public who has momentum, and seeing a major victory can translate

…

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