Joe Nutt

ALDC’s By Election Report 11.06.26

By Joe Nutt | Fri 12th June 2026 - 5:16 pm

4 parallel white vertical lines on orange background ALDC logoThree principal authority by-elections took place this week in Cheshire West and Chester, Dacroum and Slough. 

Cheshire West and Chester Council – Christleton and Huntington

Our first by-election was triggered by the sad passing of the sitting Conservative councillor. At the last election in 2023, Christleton and Huntington was closely contested, with all nine candidates in the two-member ward finishing within 12.5% of each other and extensive split voting across the ward. The two Conservatives edged out the third-placed Green …

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Simon McGrath

We need a tax rise to fund additional defence spending 

By Simon McGrath | Fri 12th June 2026 - 1:30 pm

I am an “Orange Book”  Lib Dem – I think we should have taxes as low as possible because people make the best decisions about how to spend their own money. That doesn’t of course mean that we don’t need taxes – there are lots of things the state needs to do to ensure everyone a decent society – and   tax as a % of GDP is currently a Post war high. 

But it’s very clear that our failure to adequately fund our Defences is putting our future as a safe, democratic nation at risk. John Healey’s resignation letter could hardly be clearer: 

You   spelled out the threats last week: “It is our intelligence assessment, and the assessment of other countries in Nato, that there could be an attack by Russia on Nato as soon as 2030. 

And he says the proposed backloaded plan 

falls well short of what is required for defence and the country at this dangerous time

Ed Davey has called for an extra £20bn to be funded via ‘Defence Bonds’ but there is no clarity  how these differ from any other Government borrowing nor does it seem sensible to add yet further to the UK’s massive debts. 

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Lin Macmillan

An eye for an eye is not the way forward

By Lin Macmillan | Fri 12th June 2026 - 11:55 am

It is not enough to condemn the rioting and violence that has taken place in the wake of Henry Nowak’s death, and the horrific knife attack in Belfast.  We need to understand why it is happening and look at ways to deal with the root cause.

There does seem to have been a rise in the number of violent crimes committed by those that have come to the UK as immigrants or asylum seekers.  Certainly if one believes the red-tops, this is the case.  However it would need someone with more time and expertise than I have to do an analysis of some of the more horrific crimes that have taken place in the last few months and years to establish whether or not this is truly the case.  My perception is that there are an equal number of dreadful acts carried out by those who appear to be ethnically British – they just don’t get the same amount of prominence in the media.

Whether or not there has been a rise in violent crimes committed by those who have come to seek sanctuary in the UK, the perception is that this is what is happening.  Those people who have not had the benefit of much education, and who are struggling with rising prices long waiting times for NHS treatment etc., feel aggrieved that people who have been welcomed here are not playing by the rules.  They realise that immigrants are getting healthcare, housing, and welfare payments that UK taxpayers are funding. They also believe, often incorrectly, that immigrants are somehow “jumping the queues” and preventing British people from having access to the above benefits.

What few of the rioters and protesters know, is that the circumstances that have caused many immigrants and asylum seekers to flee their homelands are ghastly beyond belief.  Some years ago I spent a little time in Malta working with those who had fled a variety of African countries, and crossed the Mediterranean in the hope of a better life.  On my first day in Malta, whilst being briefed in the offices of the organisation providing assistance to the refugees, a man suddenly ran in, shrieking and crying.  He collapsed sobbing on the floor, and when the staff finally managed to calm him down, they ascertained that someone had taken his bed.  To many, this would seem to be a very extreme reaction, but when you have lost everything, it isn’t.

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Victor Chamberlain

Putting Liberal values into practice in the heart of London

By Victor Chamberlain | Fri 12th June 2026 - 10:25 am

For 16 years, Southwark Liberal Democrats have stood up for residents and held Labour to account. In May, voters sent a clear message: Southwark needed change.

The election ended Labour’s majority and left the council in No Overall Control. That presented us with a choice. We could stand aside, prop up a tired and failed administration, or work with others to deliver the change residents had voted for.

We chose change.

For the first time in 16 years, Liberal Democrats have returned to administration in Southwark through a Joint Administration with the Southwark Green Party.

Many Liberal Democrats will understandably have questions about working with the Green Party. Recent events elsewhere in London have highlighted serious concerns around antisemitism among some Green Party members and councillors. Those concerns were among the very first issues we addressed.

We made clear that there can be no tolerance for antisemitism or any form of racism. We sought assurances from the Southwark Green Party, which is distinct from some of the problems seen elsewhere, and together we have committed to tackling antisemitism and all forms of hatred. These principles will underpin our programme for the borough.

Most importantly, this agreement gives us the opportunity to put Liberal Democrat values into practice in the heart of London.

Together, we have set out seven priorities: making Southwark more affordable; taking serious action on climate change; tackling the housing crisis; creating safer streets; cleaning up our neighbourhoods; defending Southwark from Labour’s damaging cuts; and building a council that listens and gives residents more control over decisions affecting their communities.

That final priority is perhaps the most Liberal Democrat of all.

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Jonathan Brown

Sanctions against Israeli settlers welcome – but inadequate

By Jonathan Brown | Fri 12th June 2026 - 8:55 am

This week, alongside partners Canada, France and Norway, the UK government announced expanded sanctions against 6 entities and one individual enabling settler violence in the occupied West Bank. The government has also strengthened its business risk guidance to make clear that British citizens and businesses should not conduct any economic or financial activities in Israel’s illegal settlements.

As noted by Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Calum Miller in Parliament on Tuesday, the new measures – though welcome – are extremely overdue, with the Dutch Government having issued a similar discouragement notice 20 years ago. Moreover, the notice remains purely advisory and carries no penalty for non-compliance, falling woefully short of a comprehensive ban on all trade with Israeli settlements.

The limitations of that approach are obvious. This weekend, the “Great Israeli Real Estate Event” is due to take place in London, an international roadshow that openly advertises the sale of land in West Bank settlements. If ministers genuinely believe British citizens and businesses should not engage in settlement-related activity, then allowing stolen Palestinian land to be marketed in our capital just days after issuing new guidance against settlement trade makes a mockery of that position.

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Tara Foster

Protecting children shouldn’t mean abolishing their right to privacy

By Tara Foster | Thu 11th June 2026 - 6:55 pm

An alarming shift has been taking place within the Lib Dem Parliamentary Party over the last few months.  Spearheaded by MPs such as Munira Wilson, Danny Chambers, and, most alarmingly for me, Vikki Slade, we are apparently now back to advocating for a ban on social media for children and supporting a ban on images depicting nudity being stored on their devices.

I am very worried that the Party has not thought about how this could plausibly be implemented.  I fear that once this dam breaks, once we move past a “think of the children” argument over a moral panic, then the same software which this policy requires will be able to be reused for surveillance and censorship.  I worry that we are unknowingly advocating for the implementation of the sort of intrusion usually reserved for times of war, not to mention encroaching on Article 8 of the ECHR.

Article 8 of the ECHR is the famous right to privacy, which is the idea that people have the right to live their lives free from unreasonable and unnecessary intrusion from others, including the state.  Government mandated spyware would very much fall into breach of that.  This policy would require all phones to have specialist software which scans every outgoing or incoming image for signs of nudity.  Client-Side Scanning essentially turns the user’s own device into a state informant.  It breaks end-to-end encryption by scanning the image before it is encrypted, creating a permanent backdoor that can easily be repurposed for political censorship or surveillance.  This is highly problematic.  It is also very possible, and cannot be dismissed, that this image scanning software could be further weaponised to censor other things which are currently legal, such as same sex relationships and intimacy.

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Robin Ashby

AI and Liberal Democracy

By Robin Ashby | Thu 11th June 2026 - 10:26 am

William Hague wrote in The Times this week that the key new phrase in politics is “recursive self-improvement” — AI systems that autonomously design their own successors. He is right that politics must catch up. He is wrong to imply it hasn’t started yet. In some quarters it has. The Liberal Democrats, if we are paying attention, have the intellectual architecture already in place.

There are three arguments. Each has prior form in Lib Dem thinking. Each has been transformed by AI into something urgent …

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Tanya Park

The chaos dividend: Why the ultra-rich thrive on an unstable world, and why that’s rational in the short term and suicidal in the long term

By Tanya Park | Thu 11th June 2026 - 8:55 am

The richest people in the world have more to lose from disorder than anyone. They have the most property, the most complex legal structures protecting it, the deepest interest in enforceable contracts and functioning courts. By any straightforward logic, they should be the most committed defenders of stable institutions and predictable governance.

They are not. The reason isn’t greed, or not primarily. It is something both more mundane and more intractable: it is how the system is built.

Extreme wealth, at the levels we are discussing, is not really a quantity. It is a capability: the capability to move fast, to hold options, to convert assets across time and geography in ways unavailable to anyone operating with less capital. A pension fund is slow. A small investor is constrained. A working family’s primary asset is their labour, which is geographically fixed and entirely non-diversifiable.

The ultra-rich face none of these constraints. And this matters the moment the world becomes uncertain, because options are most valuable precisely when the future is most unclear. Uncertainty is, structurally, a gift to anyone with sufficient optionality. And optionality is what extreme wealth is.

The machinery by which instability converts into wealth concentration runs through three mechanisms.

The first is crisis acquisition. When asset prices collapse, those with capital can buy. The 2008 financial crisis is the most instructive example. Ordinary households lost jobs, homes, and pension savings. When quantitative easing flooded the system with cheap money, asset prices inflated dramatically. Those who owned assets got richer. Those whose primary asset was their labour got stagnant wages and a decade of austerity. Covid-19 repeated the pattern almost exactly.

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Vince Cable

Vince Cable writes…Labour and Fiscal Rules

By Vince Cable | Wed 10th June 2026 - 11:55 am

The nation waits for the people of Makerfield to decide whether Keir Starmer will face a challenge from his most plausible and electable Labour critic. Were Andy Burnham to emerge victorious and to challenge for the party leadership, this would signal a shift to what is being called the ‘soft left’.

One of the most deeply held convictions of those in this political space is that the government is being held back from more ‘progressive’ policies by unduly restrictive fiscal rules which exist to reassure ‘the bond markets’ that the UK is a trustworthy, reliable borrower.

Andy Burnham’s position on the …

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Callum Robertson

Regional Mayors are here: we have a duty to fight these elections properly

By Callum Robertson | Wed 10th June 2026 - 10:25 am

Many Liberal Democrats feel an instinctive unease when confronted with the idea of directly-elected regional mayors. This hesitation is understandable. These roles concentrate a significant degree of executive authority in a single individual, while the combined authorities designed to support and scrutinise them often lack the strength and visibility of more established democratic institutions. Concerns about accountability, checks and balances, and the potential for over-centralisation at a regional level are therefore entirely legitimate.

However, focusing solely on these risks carries the separate risk of overlooking the substantial benefits that regional mayors can bring. While the model is not without its flaws, directly-elected mayors have repeatedly demonstrated their capacity to act as visible, accountable leaders who can champion their regions, drive economic development, and unlock improvements in public services. At their best, they provide a clear point of leadership that can cut through bureaucratic inertia, coordinate policy across transport, housing, skills, and infrastructure, and advocate effectively for investment and attention from central government.

Viewed through this more optimistic lens, it is to my mind clear that the Liberal Democrats should reconsider their cautious stance.

Rather than resisting the model that is being implemented outright, we should engage with it pragmatically and strategically. That means identifying opportunities to win mayoral contests such as Cumbria, Hull, Cambridgeshire, Surrey, Hampshire and more. Then using those platforms to demonstrate how liberal values such as community empowerment, transparency, sustainability, and inclusive growth can be delivered at scale. Success at a regional level can, in turn, strengthen our influence nationally.

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The Voice

Alex Cole-Hamilton announces new spokesperson team

By The Voice | Wed 10th June 2026 - 7:55 am

Alex Cole-Hamilton has announced the Scottish Liberal Democrats new spokesperson team, declaring that they are “ready to roll up their sleeves and get things done”.

And the party’s social media gurus clearly had the World Cup in mind when they did their comms on this:

The spokesperson line-up will be as follows:

• Andrew Baxter – Rural Affairs

• Yi-pei Chou Turvey – Justice

• Sanne Dijkstra-Downie – Climate, Environment & Energy

• Duncan Dunlop – Education, Children & Young People

• David Green – Public Service Reform, Europe, External Affairs & Culture

• Adam Harley – Health & Care

• Morven-May MacCallum – Housing, Social Security & Local Government

• Liam McArthur – Economy, Finance & Tourism

• Willie Rennie – Chief Whip & Transport

Alongside his duties as leader, Alex will take on the equalities brief.

Alex said:

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Josh Babarinde

Josh Babarinde writes…The Lib Dem Summer of Strategy

By Josh Babarinde | Tue 9th June 2026 - 8:16 pm

The May local elections have shown us we’re at a critical point for this party, and we need to decide where to go next.

There were some great results to celebrate. We gained three councils, 153 councillors, and hit double figures in Scotland. We knocked on over three million doors, and had more than a million conversations on the doorstep. Our canvassing was up 25% on four years ago. Our polling day activity was so strong, it was nearly at General Election levels! Our members, activists, councillors, staff and parliamentarians pulled out all the stops. It was an incredible effort and I am so so proud to be a part of it.

But I know that only tells part of the story. We didn’t make enough gains across key parts of the country, particularly in the North, the Midlands and urban areas. As someone who once stood for Parliament in Tower Hamlets, I mean it when I say that liberalism should be a key offer to our inner cities. 

Ever since I became Party President, I have been clear that I want us to go further than places we are comfortable. It is time to be ambitious. We cannot afford to abandon parts of the country because they may be difficult for us to reach. Politics is crying out for a serious, positive, liberal message, and we leave no stone unturned. 

There were brilliant candidates who gave everything to campaigns and didn’t get what they deserved. I campaigned (to name a few) in Cardiff, Hull, Southwark, Birmingham, Sheffield and Cambridge. Watching some of them lose to Reform or Green candidates who put in a fraction of the effort we did was utterly gutting. 

With all that said, with populism and nationalism on the rise, and with a crowded multi-party system intensifying, we need a new party strategy to meet this new moment. 

A party strategy built by members

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The Voice

WATCH: Daisy Cooper’s plan to cut energy bills

By The Voice | Tue 9th June 2026 - 10:55 am

Yesterday, Daisy Cooper announced measures to cut energy bills. Under Lib Dem plans everyone would get £100 off their bills with more targetted support for, for example, households with disabled people or children or low incomes. Watch her speech here.

She said:

Energy is not a luxury. It’s a basic human need. It’s essential. Every single household in Britain should be able to afford their basic everyday energy needs regardless of what happens in global energy markets, and regardless of who happens to be sitting in Number 10.

For too long, governments have responded to every energy crisis with short-term schemes and sticking plasters, while big corporations have made a fast buck.

That is why we are going after the big energy network operators who are gaming the system, to fund our new Essential Energy Guarantee. It is an absolute scandal that a weak regulator has allowed these monopolies to make billions in windfall profits at the expense of bill payers.

Labour’s leadership contenders have a choice: turn a blind eye to the windfall profits of energy network operators and big banks, or step in to guarantee basic dignity for families. Commit to introducing our Essential Energy Guarantee within your first 100 days.

Our Energy Spokesperson, Pippa Heylings MP, added:

This opportunity is an open goal for giving families the energy bills relief they have been hoping to see for far too long. The unfair profits accumulated by energy network companies must be reigned in and used for the public good.

This is the newest part of a package of common sense policies put forward by the Liberal Democrats: solar on every new home, a new home insulation upgrade programme, breaking the link between electricity and gas prices, and removing the renewables obligation levy.

Time after time we have put no-brainer recommendations to this government but the pace has remained painfully slow. This time they must not sit on the idea, and instead save families struggling with the cost of living now.

 

The small print

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Jack Meredith

When the caring stops

By Jack Meredith | Tue 9th June 2026 - 8:58 am

It’s Carers Week 2026! 

Once a year, between 8 – 14 June, carer charities and groups come together to raise awareness of the work carers do, what impact caring has on carers and those around them, and what we can do on a societal level to better support them.

The theme this year is “Building Carer-Friendly Communities“, highlighting how communities can better support carers, empowering them and easing the strain of their responsibilities.

I’d like to contribute to this week by talking about my mum’s experience as a carer, and what I believe can be done to better support her and others like her. I have spoken more in-depth on this topic over at Nation Cymru, which you can read here.

My mum has been a carer for both my grandparents for just over a decade, having been made redundant from the Land Registry in 2009, and taking on caring duties for my nan since then, and soon after, for my bampa (grandfather) too. She would be the first to tell you that, while rewarding, it is by no means easy or, as some well-meaning friends have described it, a “career break”.

Caring for loved ones, especially when you live in the same household as them, is your career, one that doesn’t allow you to clock-off at the end of the day, and only comes to an end when the unthinkable happens, and a loved one passes away; a reality my mum had to face earlier this year when my lovely nan passed. An aspect that often gets overlooked is what happens after a carer’s responsiblities come to an end. They’re left with no job, no support, and no structure. This is an area that I believe both the state, local authorities, and communities need to play a much larger role.

Just to note at this point: these are all pipe-dream goals I have to better support carers, rather than completely fleshed out ideas. How they would actually be funded or established, I don’t know; this is just what I would like to see.

The state

The state needs to play its part in providing grief counselling and general mental health support for carers, and this could be explored by joining up the mental health and social care services. Rather than having a carer engage with one system, go through the whole process, only to then have to engage with a completely new system and explain everything they’ve been through, the two should be joined up, with a clear avenue for carers to meet and talk with counsellors who are already up to date on everything the carer has gone through. 

This would ease the burden on the carer of having to relive every little thing in trying to get yet another person to understand. If the carer and the counsellor don’t gel, then they can go to a new counsellor, who would also be informed on what the carer has gone through.

Local authorities

I need to state, at this point, that I’m focusing solely on local authorities in Wales, rather than across the entirety of Great Britain.

Some local authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic provided carers with a one-off £500 grant to support them through that period, as part of a £29 million investment in supporting unpaid carers. While a great initiative, it needs to be brought back in some form, on a regular basis, to better support unpaid carers. Between the cost of living increases due to global conflicts, the previously mentioned pandemic, and Brexit, the current allowance of £86 a week is nowhere near enough to help carers even survive, let alone live a full life outside of their responsibilities.

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Mathew Hulbert

Mathew on Monday: “We need to be bold”

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 8th June 2026 - 4:30 pm

EXCLUSIVE: “We need to be bold, we need to be relevant, and we need to show people that we’re serious” – party figures react to news of strategy review

This weekend news broke, via PoliticsHome, that the Lib Dems are conducting an internal review of policy after concerns that had previously been kept mostly behind closed doors became public, with figures including former leadership candidate and current Chair of the Commons Health Select Committee Layla Moran speaking to the outlet about a “frustration” that the party’s been talking about the same things and that we “weren’t really moving forward.”

Despite achieving the party’s best result in a century in 2024, 72 seats in the House of Commons, it’s widely felt that since then we’ve been lost in the shuffle and all too easy to ignore.

Since the news of the review became public I’ve been speaking to people throughout the party, from parliamentarians to grassroots members for this column, about their reaction and what they want to see from the review.

Lib Dem MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough Tom Gordon, who was also quoted in the PoliticsHome piece, told me:

The political landscape is shifting fast, and voters who are frustrated with the status quo are actively looking for somewhere to go. The Lib Dems have a real opportunity here, but we have to be willing to step up with a distinctive, ambitious offer that speaks to the whole country.

He added,

We need to be bold, we need to be relevant, and we need to show people that we’re serious. Our members will not forgive us if we miss the boat.

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Chris Bowers

As a party we must be better defined for the 2029 general election

By Chris Bowers | Mon 8th June 2026 - 1:35 pm

There’s a fear emerging in the so-called realignment of British politics. All the talk is of Reform UK and the Greens being the insurgent parties that are taking over from the traditional main forces of the Conservatives and Labour. If that’s the current media and social media narrative, where do the Lib Dems fit in?

The harsh truth is that, unless we have a message that gives us an identity among those who don’t take a massive interest in politics but do at least vote, we are heading for irrelevance. That’s not true in terms of our electoral performance in …

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Tom Walker

From national averages to local realities: inequality in our communities

By Tom Walker | Mon 8th June 2026 - 10:17 am

Economic decline, Conservative austerity and misguided government policy have all been blamed for worsening inequality in the UK, however, this fails to take a rounded view of inequality and leads to debate over economic solutions that neglect local challenges. By defining inequality solely as an economic problem, we enter further debate about inequality as an economic indicator. Critics can readily underplay the impact of inequality in our society by pointing out that relative poverty has remained constant. Inequality must be viewed through the lenses of income, wealth, health and education, all of which are rooted our local communities.

Unaffordable housing, exorbitant early-years education, a lack of GP appointments and job losses reflect a perception of overall decline in the local area. This affects local people and the opportunities they are given. Two-thirds of working-age adults in poverty live in a household where someone works, this undermines the notion that “work pays” and is just cause for the anger felt by so many. Those same communities are experiencing UK firms offshoring to cheaper labour markets and criminal gangs operating with impunity. These are local issues for local people. This perception that life is getting worse and not better has been exploited by populists across Europe and the Americas. All too often, we link this phenomenon to polarisation and a changing media landscape, this isn’t the full story. Populists in the UK are campaigning on those local issues: “Make Work Pay”, “Revitalise British Manufacturing” and “Make Law-Abiding Citizens Feel Safe”. The electorate don’t need to support the extreme policies of these parties to vote for them, they simply need to see a party that is representing solutions to their local problems.

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Caron Lindsay

David Green pledges to fight for Caithness maternity care

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 7th June 2026 - 3:30 pm

David Green has delivered  his first speech at Holyrood.

All our seven newbies have now done so. Every single one of them made me cry, David more than any of them.

Not just because he is the best of people and I’ve known him for pretty much half his life (which is a tiny proportion of mine), but because he represents where I spent my teenage years and, much further south, where my husband’s family comes from. His constituency is massive, stretching from John O’Groats in the north, almost to Skye in the west.

I’ve driven the long, long road from Wick to Inverness many, many times. It’s a good bit shorter, with the Dornoch Bridge, than it used to be, but it is still a very, very long way. Even in the Summer when it’s pretty much light till well gone 11pm, it’s long. In the Winter when it’s dark at the back of 3 and the wind and the ice and the snow are doing their thing, it’s terrifying. Also, there’s a lot of rural Caithness and northern Sutherland that is very much further away than that.

I say this because a succession of SNP health ministers have done nothing to reverse the downgrading of maternity services which means that mums have to traverse that road to give birth. Now when I was in labour, I had to drive 15 or so miles on a relatively straightforward road to have my baby. And that was not a fun experience, I can assure you. So David’s commitment to fight for a full maternity unit in Caithness means something to me.

Watch his speech here.

The text is below:

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We do have a two tier system, Part 2

By Neil Hickman | Sun 7th June 2026 - 1:55 pm

One of the changes to civil court procedure which was made following Lord Woolf’s report in 1996 was to require a party’s statement of case to be verified by a statement of truth.

To put forward a case which you know to be a pack of lies, in other words, became a contempt of court and punishable by imprisonment.

There have been any number of cases in the last few years where people have put forward lying and fraudulent personal injury claims, and the courts have taken a pretty stern line. Thus the Court of Appeal in Liverpool Victoria Insurance Company Ltd v Zafar  (2019) “We say at once, however, that the deliberate or reckless making of a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth will usually be so inherently serious that nothing other than an order for committal to prison will be sufficient”. 

Similarly Lord Justice Moses in  South Wales Fire and Rescue Service v Smith  (2011): “Those who make such false claims if caught should expect to go to prison. There is no other way to underline the gravity of the conduct. There is no other way to deter those who may be tempted to make such claims, and there is no other way to improve the administration of justice”.

Now, those with long memories may recall the case of Mr Afzal, the defeated Labour candidate in Aston, Birmingham, in 2022. He had the brass neck to bring an election petition complaining that the Lib Dems had made false allegations against him during the campaign. He withdrew the petition after video footage emerged showing that the Lib Dem allegations had been absolutely true. The judge angrily commented that Mr Afzal “… had the audacity to issue these proceedings in the knowledge that the allegations quite properly made by the Respondents in the course of the election campaign were truthful. He persisted with the Petition and served evidence from himself and others which was and he must have known to be false”.

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Iain Donaldson

A Federal Britain: 3. Fiscal Federalism and a complete constitutional settlement

By Iain Donaldson | Sun 7th June 2026 - 11:55 am

Fair representation is the first pillar of constitutional renewal. Federalism is the second. The third and final pillar is fiscal federalism.

Without financial autonomy, political devolution is incomplete. Without it, devolution is symbolic. With it, it becomes real.

The United Kingdom remains highly centralised not only politically but financially. Most revenue is collected by Westminster and redistributed through complex grant systems. This creates dependency, weakens accountability, and encourages short-term decision-making. Governments often spend money they do not raise and raise money they do not directly spend.

A durable federal settlement requires power, responsibility, and funding to be aligned.

Under fiscal federalism, state governments in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, London, and the English regions would control meaningful portions of major tax bases, including elements of income taxation, business taxation, and consumption taxes. They would gain genuine responsibility for shaping economic development and funding public services.

In return, they would assume responsibility for major domestic functions including health, education, housing, transport, infrastructure, and regional economic development.

This alignment is crucial. Those who make decisions should manage the consequences. Citizens should be able to see clearly who raises revenue, who spends it, and who is accountable for outcomes.

Local government would also gain stronger fiscal powers. Councils could make greater use of land value taxation, tourism levies, congestion charging, and other locally appropriate revenue sources. This would reduce dependency on central grants and improve responsiveness to local priorities.

National solidarity would remain essential. Fiscal federalism is not a race between regions. A federal equalisation system would ensure that wealthier areas contribute more to support less prosperous parts of the country. This preserves cohesion while allowing genuine autonomy.

Such arrangements are common in successful federations because they balance fairness with decentralisation. Regions gain freedom to innovate and tailor policies to local conditions, while citizens retain the benefits of belonging to a wider national community.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 7th June 2026 - 10:04 am

AI

Sitting next to Pope Leo XIV when he launched his controversial encyclical on AI was Chris Olah—co-founder of the AI company Anthropic.

His presence was no accident. The Pope’s 235 page “Magnifica Humanitas”  calls for regulation of technology to protect the dignity of humankind.

Olah’s position is the same and he has made a name for himself by refusing to allow the Trump Administration to use Anthropic for military and intelligence purposes.

Olah is on one side of a technologically-driven political divide in Silicon Valley. On the other side are figures such as Marc Andreesen, who has been involved with many of the tech industry’s leading brands and Peter Thiel, CEO of the AI company Palantir.

Thiel and Andreesen far-right libertarians who want to avoid regulation. They see technological development as essential and that the controllers of technology should also control the politics for the benefit of all. Both men are big contributors to Donald Trump and conservative causes.

The debate goes beyond Silicon Valley to the international political stage. The Trump Administration big concern is winning the AI race with China. Donald Trump recently signed an Executive Order allow government oversight to prevent cyber-attacks. But he did so reluctantly.  He wants to keep regulation to a minimum; encourage private investment in AI and then use the product as an instrument of national power.

The EU wants AI to grow. It wants investment in European AI companies but they view government’s role as a partner and referee rather than spectator.

To put it simply: Trump wants to win the race. Brussels—and the pope-want to control AI. Britain wants to win the race safely.

The difficulty for Britain is that middle positions become harder to maintain as technologies mature. During the early nuclear age, Britain initially tried to bridge Washington and continental Europe. Eventually it had to choose where to place its strategic weight.

AI may force a similar decision. If the next decade brings increasingly powerful AI systems, the central geopolitical question may not be US versus China but whether the Western world adopts the American model of strategic competition or the European model of precautionary governance

Donald Trump and the liberal consensus

The Trump administration has always been an alliance of groups and people that oppose the so-called liberal consensus: the idea that the U.S. government should regulate business, provide social welfare programs, promote infrastructure projects, protect civil rights, and support a rules-based international order.

Since the 1980s Republicans accepted many of the institutional pillars of the post-war order—especially free trade, alliances and global leadership—even while seeking to reduce regulation and constrain the growth of government.

Trump upended that system, promising to dismantle the federal government built around the liberal consensus, the government his voters thought they hated because they thought its protection of equality before the law gave Black Americans, Brown Americans, women, and gender or religious minorities a leg up on white Christian men.

This racist lobby combined with a growing number concerned about immigration, cultural change, distrust of elites, de-industrialisation and globalisation.  Or they thought funding for science wasted their money on the research that right-wing influencers mocked for wasting their money and intruding on their freedom. Or they thought the U.S. contribution to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and U.S. participation in alliances did not put “America First.”

In 2024, Trump cobbled together enough groups who thought that way to win the White House, and as soon as he took power, he set out to destroy the liberal consensus government with the help of loyalists he installed in key positions.

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Tanya Park

Liberal Voice for Women poll doesn’t say what they say it says

By Tanya Park | Sun 7th June 2026 - 9:39 am

Yesterday I posted about a YouGov poll commissioned by Liberal Voice for Women. At the time I hadn’t had a chance to see the full dataset, and from comments by LVfW members in other threads I’d got the impression it hadn’t been published. It apparently had. Here’s my assessment now I’ve seen it in full.

The claims being made about this poll include that it shows “the majority of the party agree with us on single-sex spaces” and that “most actual party members are sex realists.” Neither holds up.

On single-sex spaces: every result LVfW are citing comes from questions specifically about trans women who have not had gender reassignment surgery. They present these as findings about trans women in general. They are not. For trans women who have had surgery the results are substantially different: hospital wards splits 43% allowed versus 37% not, toilets 51% allowed versus 32% not, changing rooms essentially even at 40/41. The only result showing a clear majority is the no-surgery changing rooms scenario at 53%. For no-surgery toilets it is 46%, not a majority. For no-surgery refuges it is 49%, also not a majority.

On sex realism: the poll asks whether people who believe biological sex cannot be changed are “bigoted.” 44% say they are not. LVfW infer from that result that 44% of respondents are themselves sex realists. The question does not ask whether respondents hold that belief. It asks whether holding it makes you bigoted. Those are completely different things. And 44% is not most.

The intimate care question asks whether a trans woman should provide care without the patient’s specific consent. 79% say no. That is a result about consent process, not categorical exclusion.

There are also real questions about the sample itself. This is not a poll of Lib Dem members. It is a poll of people who self-identify as current or past members within YouGov’s opt-in panel. Nearly half the sample is over 65, which is not representative of the active membership. Those are not minor caveats when the claim is that most party members believe X.
And here is what does not appear anywhere in LVfW’s materials: 84% of respondents think conversion therapy away from a person’s birth sex should not be allowed. When asked what should happen if women’s and trans people’s rights conflict, 59% say find a compromise, 12% say they don’t conflict at all, and only 22% say women’s rights should take priority.

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Alison Suttie

Alison Suttie writes: Thank you to our volunteers

By Alison Suttie | Sun 7th June 2026 - 7:55 am

Headshot of Baroness Alison SuttieThank you.

As we mark Volunteers’ Week, that’s the message I most want to share with the hundreds of Liberal Democrat members who give their time to support our candidate approval and selection processes.

As Chair of the Joint Candidates Sub-Committee, I see first-hand every week the extraordinary contribution our volunteers make. Whether you sit on approval panels, help organise assessments, support candidate development, serve on selection committees, provide mentoring, stand as a candidate or any of the other ways volunteers keep the whole process running behind the scenes, you are helping to build the future of our party. 

Every approval conducted and every selection completed is only possible because volunteers step forward to make it happen. Your efforts ensure that local parties across the country can put forward strong Liberal Democrat voices in their communities. 

So, to everyone who has played a part – thank you. Thank you for the evenings spent on Zoom, the weekends given up for assessments, the paperwork, the interviews, the mentoring conversations and all the countless hours that most members never see. 

As we look ahead to the next General Election, our work is far from finished. We will need more approved candidates, more selections completed and more support for those stepping forward to represent our party. That means we will once again be asking members to volunteer their time and expertise. 

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Caron Lindsay

Andrew Baxter: I want to be a voice for the Highlands

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 6th June 2026 - 3:07 pm

New Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch MSP Andrew Baxter made his first speech in Holyrood this week. He looked very happy about it, as well he should given that he represents what I think are some of the most beautiful places in the world, especially my happy place, Rosemarkie Beach.

He paid tribute to the “resilient” communities of his constituency and set out his desire to be a voice for the Highlands on issues like building public services that are accessible, reliable and closer to home.

I was in tears when he talked about the lady whose husband had been put in a care home 2 hours away – the unnecessary reality of life in the Highlands.

I am also ashamed to say that I didn’t know about Nessie’s sister Morag, who apparently lives in Loch Morar, though Loch Ness is plenty big enough for two monsters, to be honest.

Watch here:

The text is below:

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Caron Lindsay

What’s going on with party strategy?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 6th June 2026 - 12:19 pm

Once per Parliament, the Federal Board is obliged to put before Conference a party strategy. Article 5.1 of the Federal Constitution states:

The Federal Board shall have the responsibility periodically, and at least onceper Parliament, for preparing a document outlining the Party’s strategy, inconjunction with the Leader’s political strategy, for submission for debate and
agreement by Conference.

The Board’s plan is to bring a strategy to Autumn Conference. If the anger following the local elections is anything to go by, members will be looking for a commitment to developing a nationally relevant message to re-establish us as a viable national alternative. Ed Davey’s comments about wanting us to be “the party of Middle England” have sparked huge concern in the party. There is a feeling that we are being too timid for fear of upsetting the Daily Mail at a time when the country is screaming out for a liberal alternative to the populist parties of right and left. Imagine that, a party that fixes stuff, stands up for liberal values and really resonates with people who are, to use a good Scottish word, scunnered with politics.

PoliticsHome has an article this weekend titled “Inside the Lib Dem strategy rethink.” Several MPs are quoted, including Tom Gordon, Layla Moran, Daisy Cooper along with some who are un-named.

Politics Home says the party is looking at changing direction:

To that end, the party is undergoing a strategy and policy overhaul, with key areas of discussion including the economy, welfare, and, as the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum approaches, a bolder stance on the European Union.

Tom Gordon confirmed the rethink:

I don’t think it was necessarily the wrong approach, but just given the nature and the timeline of where we’re at in this parliament and the political events and that fragmentation, I think there is now a rethinking of what we do, what we offer, how we’re more punchy, how we’re bolder, and what the offer from us is.

A senior MP hinted at an approach that to me sounds too managerial:

The MP said the party is “starting to think about the economy in a much more structural manner”, and the frontbench team had been “set a task of properly scrutinising departmental budgets, where money is being spent”.

They added that the party needs to “make sure we are economically credible”, with there being more appetite from figures at the top of the party towards thinking about what the Lib Dem offering would be in a potential future coalition.

Layla Moran sounded optimistic about what was coming:

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We do have a two-tier system

By Neil Hickman | Sat 6th June 2026 - 10:55 am

I think Nigel Farage is right. We do have two-tier policing.

No, let me finish, as the man himself is fond of saying.

A couple of years ago, Lucy Connolly, a troubled and not especially clever individual, posted an unpleasant and inflammatory tweet in the aftermath of the Southport murders. She thought better of it and deleted it after a few hours. And it is difficult to believe that anybody sought to set fire to anything simply because of what an obscure woman from Northampton posted on Twitter.

What Connolly wrote was deeply unpleasant, but I can’t help feeling that the most appropriate thing to do with her would have been to tear her off a strip and tell her not to be such a fool in future. Given the very prescriptive approach to sentencing which now applies, of course, the judge’s hands were tied and she was jailed for two and a half years.

A few days ago, Nigel Farage ignored the request of Henry Nowak’s family not to make his murder the cause of division. With all the authority of the leader of a party that polled 17% at the last election, he made an Emergency Address To The Nation, which, because it was Good Old Nige, didn’t provoke gales of laughter. And he called for people to display “pure cold rage”. Unlike Ms Connolly, Farage is a highly intelligent wordsmith, who chooses his words with care. And he did not invite people to be angry. He invited them to display rage.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: NATO Irony

By Tom Arms | Sat 6th June 2026 - 8:58 am

Marco Rubio says the next month’s NATO summit will be one of the most consequential in history. He is right—but not for the reasons he imagines.

President Trump has spent years demanding that Europe take responsibility for its own defence. The Europeans have finally agreed. The problem is that they have also concluded that they cannot rely entirely on Washington.

That realisation is likely to dominate the summit. The immediate result will be more defence spending. The long-term result may be the emergence of a European military-industrial complex capable of challenging America’s dominance of the global arms market.

If so, future historians may conclude that Donald Trump did more than persuade Europe to rearm. He persuaded it to compete.

It will not be a happy group when the 32 NATO leaders gather in Ankara on 7-8 July. The 30 European members are still angry about Donald Trump’s designs on Greenland; statements about “European civilisational decline” and his failure to consult allies before starting a war with Iran. Trump is angry that Denmark won’t handover Greenland; NATO restrictions on US airbases during the Iran War and the Alliance’s failure to join the Israeli-American war on Iran.

But at the top of the agenda will be the Ukraine War and European re-armament. The Trump Administration has successfully shifted the cost of arming Ukraine from American to European shoulders with the PURL (Prioritised Ukrainian Requirements List) programme. Trump plus the Ukraine War and the growing Russian threat has prompted Europe that it needs more weapons now. It takes time to build the factories and shipyards to make them so they are by buying more from America.

The Russian threat is bonanza for the US defence industry. Between 2021 and 2015 European arms imports increased 217 percent over the previous five-year period. The estimated amount is $220 billion. European NATO is rushing to fill its defence gaps with off-the-shelf F-35s, Patriot Missile Systems, HIMARS, Apache helicopters and munitions.

But while shelling out billions to America, Europeans are also building the factories and shipyards that will build the weapons that will in the long-term replace American imports.

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Simon Banks

What really happened?

By Simon Banks | Fri 5th June 2026 - 7:27 pm

Soon after the Second World War ended, a German Jewish survivor, a brilliant philosophy student, sat down to explain to herself and the world how Hitler and Stalin had turned organised madness into an engine of government and destruction. Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism came out in 1951.

Much of her analysis is dated or specific to the German or Russian peoples. But some is chillingly relevant.

How relevant is this to Trump’s MAGA movement, to Farage and Reform?

  • “Denial of the very possibility of a common mankind…total denial of the whole concept of human rights – stigmatised as weak, feeble-minded and hypocritical.”
  • Particular appeal to people who had not taken part in political life – non-voters etc – and such people could be kept loyal without much argument or influence of reason. “Politically indifferent masses could easily be a majority in a democratically ruled country…a democracy could function according to rules which are actively recognised by only a minority.”

Reform’s success has been to combine the intolerant hard right, which always existed, with voters who previously had not voted in local elections, and maybe not in any elections – people who neither understood not trusted the system.

Why is such a large pool of such voters available? The internet, the right-wing media and immigration are obvious and real reasons – but there are others.

There were always many people beyond social or work organisation, beyond strong and stable communities. In 18th century Europe they were numerous in cities, fuelling the Porteous Riots in Edinburgh and the Gordon Riots in London. In the 19th century, they declined despite urbanisation, because of the rise of an urbanised working class – possessing regular jobs, working en masse and unionised. Moreover, Methodists, Baptists and Catholics recruited and organised among urban workers. The Nonconformist churches and the unions had a participative ethos, promoting active mutual support. Both unions and chapels were strongly linked to the Liberals while the Conservative Party relied on traditional ties: rural land-based hierarchy, Church of England, military.

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Joe Nutt

ALDC by-election report, 4th June

By Joe Nutt | Fri 5th June 2026 - 5:14 pm

One principal authority by-election took place this week in Westmorland & Furness – a Conservatives defence in Hawcoat and Newbarns.

Westmorland & Furness Council, Hawcoat & Newbarns

This week’s by-election was triggered by the resignation of the former Conservative councillor. In 2022, at the inaugural election of the new Westmorland and Furness Council, the Liberal Democrats took control of the unitary thanks to sweeping gains wins several wards in Tim Farron’s constituency. However, this ward is in the industrial seaport town of Barrow-in-Furness – an electorally challenging area for us. At the last election, all three of our candidates finished last behind the Conservatives, Labour and Independents.

This is crucial context for understanding our last placed finish in the by-election last night. Reform easily beat the Conservatives, who dropped over 20 points into third place. It should be noted that the winning Reform candidate, Hazel Edwards, was formerly a Conservative councillor and mayor.

Turnout was very low, falling by around 14 points to 27%.

A big thank you to Stephen Pickthall for making sure a Liberal Democrat was on the ballot!

Reform: 1139, 48.4% (NEW)
Labour: 576, 24.5% (-9.8%)
Conservative: 447, 19.0% (-21.5%)
Green: 121, 5.1% (NEW)
Liberal Democrats: 69, 2.9% (-2.7%)

Reform GAIN from Conservative

Turnout: 27%

Thank you to all of our candidates, agents, and campaign teams. A full summary of these results, and all other principal council by-elections, can be found on the ALDC by-elections page here.

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Iain Donaldson

A Federal Britain: 2. Devolving power and redesigning the Constitution

By Iain Donaldson | Fri 5th June 2026 - 8:57 am

Fair votes are essential, but they are only the first pillar of constitutional renewal. The second pillar is federalism: the redistribution of power away from Westminster and towards the nations and regions where people actually experience the consequences of government decisions.

The United Kingdom is one of the most centralised democracies in the developed world. Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and London possess varying degrees of devolution, yet most of England remains governed through Westminster departments, Whitehall ministries, arm’s-length agencies, and overlapping administrative bodies. Decisions affecting transport, housing, infrastructure, skills, economic development, and public services are often taken hundreds of miles away from the communities they affect.

The result is confusion, duplication, and weak accountability. When services fail, it is frequently unclear whether responsibility lies with ministers, local authorities, regulators, agencies, or quasi-independent bodies. Democracy becomes less meaningful when citizens cannot identify who is responsible.

Federalism addresses this by clearly defining where power sits.

Westminster would become a genuine federal parliament responsible for defence, foreign affairs, national security, macroeconomic stability, currency, and constitutional matters. Rather than simultaneously acting as both a UK parliament and, in practice, England’s legislature, it would focus on genuinely federal responsibilities.

Below it would sit state-level governments: Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, London, and a series of English regional states.

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