Liberal Democrat Voice

Sunday fun: the uninvited guest at Ed Davey photocall

By The Voice | Sun 10th May 2026 - 10:55 am

Yesterday, Ed Davey came up to Edinburgh to celebrate our very good election results

He and Alex Cole-Hamilton filmed a video and had an unexpected guest.

Enjoy.

Posted in News | Tagged Alex Cole-Hamilton, ed davey and humour | Leave a comment

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Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 10th May 2026 - 8:52 am

In a fit of pique Donald Trump announced that he was withdrawing 5,000 troops from Germany. He also said that he was considering pulling soldiers out of Italy and Spain.

Why these three countries? Because their leaders had the temerity to criticise the US president.

Trump is cutting off Uncle Sam’s face to spite his nose while shooting him in the foot. In short, it is a stupid move. America needs Europe. For a start. Europe is the largest financial pillar outside the United States supporting the US defense industry—it spends more than $100 billion a year. And the US defense industry is five percent of America’s GDP.

American bases in Europe also enable the US to project power throughout Eurasia, Africa, the Middle East and the western end of the Indo-Pacific region. It has bases in Britain, Germany, the Baltic countries, Poland, Spain, Italy and even Greenland.

The US bases enable the Pentagon to pre-position equipment and fuel for rapid deployments; provide some of the world’s finest hospitals; repair centres; intelligence; command centres and deployment infrastructure. Europe is the foundational stone that makes global power projection possible.

Trump’s recently published National Security Strategy focused on “civilisational decline” in Europe and the need to focus on the Western Hemisphere. But it also said that Europe would “remain as a platform for US global operations.”

Given the above, it should follow that the US president should learn to be nicer to the people he needs.

Trump is off to China next week. To be exact, he is in Beijing next Thursday and Friday for talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

At the moment the US and China are in the middle of a trade truce. That is because the trade war that Trump launched last April proved disastrous to both countries. Trump raised tariffs to over 100 percent. China immediately cut off America’s access to the rare earth minerals. Trump retaliated by reducing Chinese access to American technology and financial instruments. The result was a Mexican stand-off.

Both sides backed away, lowered tariffs and resumed access to products. But the spate left a bad taste in the mouths of both leaders. They think that Sino-American cooperation will only benefit the other. In fact, the only thing keeping Trump and Xi talking to each other is the fear of the economic damage each can inflict on each other’s country.

This will upset US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who has spent the first part of this year negotiated a set of trade deals which he hopes will be signed in Beijing. According to diplomatic sources, it is more likely that the best result will be a pair of fixed smiles and a handshake.

May should be an interesting diplomatic month for India. It will have to perform a delicate balancing act between the American-dominated West and the Chinese-dominated East and South.

Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Tagged tom arms world review | 2 Comments

A stream of consciousness on the Scottish elections

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 9th May 2026 - 4:11 pm

Now that I have had some sleep, and before I have some more, I’m going to just quickly jot down a few thoughts about yesterday’s elections, what happens next and what I think our party needs to do going forward.

Scotland

Going up from 4 MSPs elected in 2021 to 10 in 2026 is undeniably a good result. The journey uphill is always slower and more laborious than the rapid descent downhill that we experienced in 2011.

We are on our way back, though, and the Highlands are coloured gold again in their entirety. Not so the islands, though. The loss of Shetland …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged 2026 holyrood elections | 4 Comments

Slow and steady growth

By Mary Reid | Sat 9th May 2026 - 3:16 pm

Many of us are imagining what it might be like to experience a major surge in support like that being enjoyed by Reform UK at the moment, and to a lesser extent by the Greens. However I have always argued that slow steady growth is much more sustainable, especially for a centrist party based on strong values rather than populism, and there are some good examples from this week.

I am looking at East Surrey and West Surrey, where the councillors have been elected to set up the new unitaries in 2027 to replace Surrey County Council.

The last full elections to Surrey County Council were in 2021; 81 seats were up for grabs with these results: 47 Con (58%), 14 Lib Dem (17%), 2 Lab (2.5%), 2 Green (2.5%) and 16 other (20%). The others are mainly Residents Associations.

And yet on Thursday we won both of the new authorities.

On Thursday, there were 162 new seats in total in East and West Surrey. The combined results were: 96 Lib Dem (59%), 30 Con (19%), 14 Ref (8.5%), 8 Green (5%) and 14 other (8.5%). How did that happen?

To understand the apparent leap in our seats from 17% to 59% we have to track all the smaller gains made in the intervening years. This wasn’t a sudden and unexpected victory but a steady build-up over time.

For a start we were beavering away at the County Council by-elections as they occurred. By the time of this election the Conservatives were already down to 38 (from 47) and we were up to 18 (from 14).

But a more revealing picture emerges when we look at the gains in the eleven District Councils within Surrey. All of them elect by thirds so the effects were cumulative over time. By this year we had taken control of Woking, Mole Valley and Surrey Heath and we had become the largest party in Elmbridge, Guildford, and Waverley, so we were effectively running more than half the districts.

On top of that we made some important gains in Westminster in 2024. Prior to that we had no Lib Dem MPs in the county. Of the 13 constituencies we won six, and welcomed Chris Coghlan in Dorking and Horley, Will Forster in Woking, Zoe Franklin in Guildford, Monica Harding in Esher and Walton, Helen Maguire in Epsom and Ewell and Al Pinkerton in Surrey Heath.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged 2026 local elections | 11 Comments

Observations of an ex-pat: War’s end?

By Tom Arms | Sat 9th May 2026 - 12:17 pm

The Gulf region is on the cusp of peace. That is according to President Donald Trump who issues more lies and obfuscations than my dog Bear barks in any given day.

Having said that, both Axios and Reuters report that there is now a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which indicates Iranian willingness to discuss suspending uranium enrichment, a partial lifting of US sanctions against Iran and unfreezing of assets and some sort of return to normality in the Strait of Hormuz.

It should be stressed, however, that an MOU is not a peace deal. It is merely an agreement on talking points.

But According to Trump the MOU was enough for him to suspend “Operation Freedom”—a major US naval effort to throw a “red, white and blue protective umbrella” over shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Wrong. The real reason for its suspension was the Saudis fear that Iran would fire on the protective convoy. The convoy would fire back. Trump would order renewed missile attacks, and the war would again spread throughout the Gulf.

Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff may be the two Americans meeting with Iranian (and/or Pakistani) officials in Geneva and Islamabad, but behind the scenes America’s junior partners in the Iran War are calling at least some of the shots. These are Israel, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE.

Israel is more like full partner than junior partner. Its Government is certainly the most hawkish. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu played a key role in dragging Trump into the Iran War and according to him is in “almost daily contact” with the president. The Israeli security establishment views Iran as an “existential threat” to Israel. It wants to overthrow the theocratic regime and replace it with a pro-Israeli secular government that will end support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

Netanyahu has the support of Israeli public opinion. It is starting to drop, but is still pro-war. At the start of March, 80 percent of Israelis supported the war. This had dropped to 54 percent by the end of April. 61 percent are opposed to the ceasefire.

Another factor in Israeli thinking is that they are totally unaffected by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. None of their energy or fertiliser supplies come from the Gulf Region.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged observations of an ex pat | 4 Comments

So we got a Highlands and Islands list MSP after all!

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 9th May 2026 - 9:54 am

Well, my last post last night has not aged well.

That first sentence:

There’s just the Highlands and Islands list left to count now but the Liberal Democrats will not win anything on that because we won 3 constituency seats.

was, not to be overly dramatic, bollocks.

And I have never been more delighted to have egg on my face.

In the middle of the night, when they finally finished counting in Inverness, our Morven-May MacCallum took the fifth of seven seats. She is currently the Councillor for my favourite place on earth, the Black Isle just north of Inverness.

Morven is an author who campaigns to raise awareness about Lyme Disease, which she suffers from. On the Council, she focuses on:

Prioritising road safety and road repair (and so is presumably responsible for the improvement in the road between Rosemarkie and Tore which is not like Swiss cheese any more).
Expanding the creation of more and better local jobs.
Support for community programs, organisations education and well-being.
A focus on local sustainability and green initiatives.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged 2026 holyrood elections | 4 Comments

Scotland update: 5 more MSPs and a narrow miss

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 8th May 2026 - 10:27 pm

There’s just the Highlands and Islands list left to count now but the Liberal Democrats will not win anything on that because we won 3 constituency seats.

So we end the day with 9 MSPs, more than double hte 4 elected in 2021.

Since 5:30, we have seen David Green take Caithness, Sutherland and Ross with a staggering 48% of the vote.

Then Andrew Baxter won Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch by just around 1000 votes.

There was heartbreak when Neil Alexander missed out on Inverness and Nairn by just over 400 votes. He had run a brilliant campaign to come from fourth to a very close second.

Yi-Pei Chou Turvey regained a list spot in the North East and Duncan Dunlop won on the South of Scotland list.

We missed out on a list seat in Mid Scotland and Fife despite a vibrant and energetic campaign that covered the whole region.

So we have our 9. At this point, we know that the SNP is the largest party but they fall short of a t majority, which is kind of how it is meant to be.

Posted in News | Tagged 2026 holyrood elections and 2026 local elections | Leave a comment

Friday late afternoon update:

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 8th May 2026 - 6:00 pm

Well, I’m back from my count where I saved my deposit and came within a couple of hundred votes of beating the Conservatives.

I am beyond exhausted, but I will try and pull together what we know so far.

Scotland

The bad news is that we have lost Shetland. It will seem like a big shock to everyone to lose a seat that we have represented in Westminster for 75 years and in Holyrood since devolution. I feel for Emma Macdonald, who ran a busy and beautiful campaign. I think there was some worry about Shetland at the start of the campaign but that we had become more confident. It’s a huge loss, let’s make no bones about it.

In the other group of Northern Isles, Liam McArthur was returned with what I think is the highest percentage vote share of any MSP ever – 70.9%.

He is one of 5 MSPs we have at 5:30 pm. This is one more than we had in 2021 and means that we will be an officially recognised group from the start of the new Parliament.

The others are Sanne Dijkstra-Downie who gained the new seat of Edinburgh Northern which was notionally SNP, Alex Cole-Hamilton, who now enjoys a 13,000 majority in Edinburgh North Western, Willie Rennie who won Fife North East with 63.7% of the vote and an increased majority and Adam Harley, who has just won the constituency of Strathkelvin and Bearsden for the first time in the history of the Scottish Parliament from the SNP.

It’s looking that we might also soon win in Caithness, according to the BBC. Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch and Inverness and Nairn are two horse races between us and the SNP.

Alan Reid missed out on winning Argyll and Bute by 2.500 votes, a seat he held at Westminster between 2001 and 2015.

And they haven’t started on the lists yet, where we hope to pick up another few seats.

Wales

I’m beyond gutted that we didn’t win our two biggest prospects for gains, Sam Bennett in Swansea and Rodney Berman in Cardiff. However, thankfully, Jane Dodds has got back in in the last seat in her constituency so we will still have representation. It’s such a shame that this will be the third term that we have had a sole representative in the Senedd. She will no doubt have an important role, though given the overall numbers between Plaid and Reform.

England

Overall, we are 92 Councillors up, but London seems to be a tale of two halves. In the south, we’ve already had almost North Korean results in Richmond and Sutton – a testament to the brilliant work of our councillors. Kingston added to that with 44 out of 48.

Posted in News | Tagged 2026 holyrood elections, 2026 local elections and 2026 senedd elections | 16 Comments

Friday morning update – Lib Dems gain Stockport and Portsmouth but lose Hull

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 8th May 2026 - 8:14 am

So with only about 10% of the results across the nation in, we are doing ok.

We have gained control of Stockport, a success that had Hazel Grove MP Lisa Smart dancing on live television.

We also gained Portsmouth.

The results in the London Boroughs of Richmond and Sutton were almost embarrassing. We took all 54 seats in Richmond and 51 out of 55 in Sutton, wiping out the Tories there completely. While it is a huge endorsement of the good work our Councillors are doing, it’s also not healthy in any democracy for any party to have so much power.

There was less good news in Merton where we had hoped to get closer to control. Labour held on, though we gained two seats.

The sad news is that we lost our majority control in Hull, though we are still the largest party by a very long way. Reform picked up 10 seats, 7 from Labour and 3 from us. We also gained one from Labour. We almost lost another to Reform by a handful of votes.

Overall, we have gained 35 Council seats so far, retaining control of Eastleigh along the way.

Posted in News | 35 Comments

And that’s a wrap – thanks everyone!

By The Voice | Thu 7th May 2026 - 10:00 pm

Millions of steps taken, thousands of doors knocked on and phone calls made. There will be a lot of very tired Lib Dems this evening.

Many of us will have to wait till tomorrow to know the results. Only a few areas are counting tonight and we’ll round up those results in the morning.

Alex Cole-Hamilton has said a big thank you to the teams who have been out across Scotland today:

As polls close I would like to thank all of the Scottish Liberal Democrat candidates and activists who have worked so hard to deliver a positive and energetic campaign from

…

Posted in News | Tagged 2026 holyrood elections, 2026 local elections and 2026 senedd elections | Leave a comment

Good luck!

By Mary Reid | Thu 7th May 2026 - 8:06 am

So what are you doing reading this? Shouldn’t you be out telling or knocking up on the doorsteps?

OK, so I do know that not everyone has the opportunity, or the capacity, to do either of those tasks, and, of course, if that applies to you then your support is also precious.

During the day the BBC follows some pretty strict guidelines about what they can report – which is why there is always a story about dogs in polling stations. Things only really swing into action at 10pm.

So what should we be looking for after polls close?

In Wales the counts for the Senedd elections will begin on Friday morning, although returning officers are allowed to verify the votes the night before, which may speed things up a bit. Once the count begins Wales has adopted the D’Hondt system for the first time. Six members are elected for each of the 16 constituencies, but voters can only select the party list they wish to support rather than individual members.

In Scotland the counts for the Scottish Parliament won’t begin until Friday morning either. Scottish elections are always logistically challenging because of the many very remote locations, so expect some delays. Voters will be selecting their MSPs using the Additional Member System. The country is divided into 73 constituencies, each of which elects a member under FPTP. The constituencies are clustered into eight regions and they each elect 7 further members, with voters selecting a single party list. A modified D’Hondt system allocates these additional members to reflect the overall balance of the votes. (Londoners will recognise this as the method for electing the London Assembly)

In England, there is a patchwork of local council elections in 136 local authorities. These include district councils, unitaries (some newly formed), metropolitan boroughs, county councils and all the London boroughs. Most of these are all-in all-out every four years, but some are electing by thirds. It is important to note that the seats being contested today only cover about a third of all the principal council seats in England. In addition six directly elected mayors are up for election. Some councils will be counting overnight, some on Friday.

Only Northern Ireland has a quiet day, with no elections taking place.

Mark Pack – election guru and past Party President – has an interesting analysis here: 6 ways to judge the Liberal Democrat election results.

We would love to hear from you in the comments about counts that are worth watching out for. I will kick off by saying that my money (metaphorically) is on the London Borough of Merton; it is one of those rare instances where we have won a Westminster seat – Paul Kohler in Wimbledon – before gaining control of the council. And it is counting overnight so we should get the result by breakfast on Friday.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged 2026 local elections, 2026 scottish parliament elections and 2026 senedd elections | 1 Comment

Ed Davey: Lib Dems are here to empower people

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 6th May 2026 - 10:30 pm

Ed Davey has been giving interviews ahead of tomorrow’s local elections:

He spoke to Cathy Newman tonight. She asked him whether he got exhausted as a carer and if it all got too much. He said that he and his wife Emily wanted to use their privileged position to fight for carers. He said that Liberal Democrats were all about empowering people.

Watch here:

Liberal Democrats believe in empowering people: whether it’s carers who feel exhausted and unheard, families struggling to get support, or communities failed by water companies.

It’s why we’ll continue to stand up to Nigel Farage as he tries to import Trump-style politics here.

— Ed Davey (@eddavey.libdems.org.uk) May 6, 2026 at 5:03 PM

In an interview with the Guardian, he said tht the Lib Dems were the best placed to stop Reform:

Davey said the Lib Dems were a better bet than the Greens, adding: “We are finding that when people realise the choice is us or Reform, lots of people who were even thinking of voting Conservative were coming to us, certainly Labour and Green are coming to us. Tactical voting will be key, Reform is working really hard, spending lots of their money, meaning results will be on a knife edge.”

He said that in parts of the north of England polling showed a straight fight between the Lib Dems and Reform, including Stockport and Hull, and that areas such as Portsmouth in the south should consider voting Lib Dem to stop Reform. “I am determined we stop them now,” he said.

A lack of opposition to Donald Trump and weakness over the war in Iran had hurt the chances of Reform and the Conservatives, he said, adding that it was a mistake for the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, to have tacked so hard to the right.

“When you talk to that traditional one-nation, pro-Europe liberal Tory, they are pretty upset with Kemi Badenoch; they feel the Conservative party has left them,” he said. “They look at us and see us standing up for Britain against Trump’s bullying, they like what we are saying on the economy and defence, and they feel more comfortable with us.”

Here’s a reminder of this year’s local elections Party Election Broadcast:

Posted in News | Tagged 2026 local elections | 1 Comment

Just peachy! Scotland needs change with fairness at its heart

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 6th May 2026 - 11:51 am

This Scottish election campaign has been exciting from a Scottish Lib Dem point of view. For the first time in 15 years, we have a real chance of making significant gains in our representation. The polls are putting us anywhere between 8 and 13 from our current 5.

Alex Cole-Hamilton has been brilliant at delivering our message. He lands it every time and somehow manages to make it sound fresh.

He has been on fire. Watch him tackle John Swinney on ferries in the last tv leaders’ debate:

We are focusing on 4 key areas:

Fixing health care so you can see a GP, mental health professional or GP when you need to
Cutting the cost of living by insulating cold homes and using our renewable energy to cut bills
Getting Scotland moving again – sort ferries, buses, other public transport and roads
Getting Scottish education back up the rankings by putting 2000 pupil support assistants back into classrooms and taking mobile phones out.

Our aims is to win an extra 6 constituencies in addition to the ones we already hold:

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged 2026 scottish parliament elections and featured | 2 Comments

Help turn Birmingham gold!

By Roger Harmer | Wed 6th May 2026 - 8:47 am

We are now a day away from the Birmingham City elections, which promises to be a momentous appraisal of the last four years of Labour rule in the second city. The party are set to lose not just their majority, but huge swathes of seats as residents have their say on the catastrophic failures presided over by the ruling group.

Labour knows this, their disingenuous ploy to pretend to settle the bin strike – which has left areas of the city piled high with bags of rotting rubbish, fly tipping, and rubbish strewn streets for over a year – has spectacularly backfired amongst voters who are asking “why should we vote for them to fix a problem they created themselves?”

The anger is palpable.

We offer an alternative. For the last few months we have fought the biggest campaign we have ever run. Our hard working campaigners have knocked on thousands of doors, delivered pallets upon pallets of literature, and have been improving their communities by reporting potholes, fly-tipping, and (in the case of one candidate) shovelling piles of used nappies from in front of a residential block.

Reform thinks that they are going to win control of the council, so we have worked hard to spread our message of hope and ambition to ensure that residents know that they have a voice in the chamber working hard for them already. Our manifesto – promising investment in our roads and communities as well as our plan to end the bin strike – has been received positively by residents and the media and is translating into support on the ground.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged 2026 local elections and birmingham | 4 Comments

Harold Wilson: The Winner

By Paul Walter | Tue 5th May 2026 - 10:42 am

Embed from Getty Images
“Harold Wilson: The Winner” by Nick Thomas-Symonds is an excellent biography which, to a large degree, resets the reputation of Wilson with a skilled degree of fairness and precision.

Previous accounts have painted him as a manipulative fixer – often working out the lowest common denominator in any situation to find a way to muddle forward.

Thomas-Symonds, with access to more documents than were previously available, gives us a picture of a decent, honourable man who was also very clever. His concern for the under-privileged and for issues such as race and gender equality shine through his work. He retained support from the left of the Labour party throughout his political life. The book relates his close working relationship with Nye Bevin and Barbara Castle.

Posted in Books | 24 Comments

Civil liberties and the proposed social media ban

By Shane Burke | Sun 3rd May 2026 - 11:55 am

Occasionally, one has the opportunity to comment on developments across two jurisdictions. The proposed social media ban for under-16s invites reflection on civil liberties, children’s rights, and perceptions of government in the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.

With both the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom mulling banning teens under 16 from social media such as Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and more, this piece warns that the solution to what ails young people is to address the root causes, not pursue crude policies like a ban.

To begin with, for the liberal parties that both Fianna Fáil, one of the current parties of government in the Republic of Ireland, and the United Kingdom’s Liberal Democrats claim to be through their shared membership of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party, this reflexive policy of an online ban for under-16s sets a bad example. What it says to young people is that their lived experience of life online does not matter, and that their civil liberties matter less than those of people over 16. Take the scourge of keeping children safe from online sexual predators, according to the Adults’ Media Use and Attitudes Report issued by Ofcom in 2024, the age group least likely to identify a fake online profile were those aged 65+. This is surely a key digital media skill for keeping children safe from paedophiles, yet nobody is suggesting granny should be banned from social media.

Maybe the answer to these debates is to actually listen to children themselves, something both the United Kingdom and Ireland agreed to as signatories of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 12, which, in its simplest form, says, “I have the right to be listened to and taken seriously.” This is, to be fair to the incumbent Labour government, what it is trying to do, saying so in a recent Gov.UK press release titled “Government to drive action to improve children’s relationship with mobile phones and social media“. If that is so, hopefully, they will consider a book cited by Professor Paul Bernal, Professor of Information Technology Law in the University of East Anglia School of Law. He cites danah boyd’s (danah spells her name without capitalisation) seminal book: “It’s complicated: The social lives of networked teens“. This book argues that an online ban will take away an important freedom from vulnerable teens, which is the freedom to shape their own identity, not be viewed through the personal traits bullies use to torment them.

People often talk as though the internet for kids is all about bullying – but it can often be exactly the opposite, a way to escape bullying. If you’re being bullied for your appearance, your ethnicity your name, your family, your poverty, any health condition – this is particularly important for many disabled kids, neurodivergence, sexuality, religion and much more, the internet can help. None of that has to show – you can create a life where the first thing that people see isn’t the thing that the bullies use to target you.
Prof Paul Bernal

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged social media ban for under 16s | 9 Comments

Tom Arm’s World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 3rd May 2026 - 9:46 am

Ukraine

Robots are the future face of war. And Ukraine’s dominance in the production of drones and unmanned boats and ground vehicles means that it is well on its way to becoming a defense industry superpower.

Drone production is up from 800,000 a year three years ago to seven million in 2025. They enjoy a three to one advantage over the Russians over the top of the range First Person View (FPV) drones. These are drones fitted with a camera which allows the operator to see in real time everything the drone sees. Ukraine is also producing 1,000 fixed wing drones a day. These can travel up to 1,500 miles into Russian territory.

Ukraine’s success with unmanned boats and submarines has given it dominance in the Black Sea. But its latest success has been with a variety of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs). They are used primarily to deliver supplies to front line troops, but they have also been used to lay mines and rescue soldiers trapped behind enemy lines. The latest versions are also used as launching pads for armed drones.

Ukraine has 2,500 companies involved in the development and production of drones and unmanned vehicles which, according to President Volodomyr Zelensky, have conducted 22,000 missions in the first three months of this year.

Russia is, of course, also stepping up production of drones and unmanned vehicles. Early in the war Moscow had the advantage. But Ukraine adopted an entrepreneurial approach to production which has overtaken and streaked ahead of Russian manufacturing whose rigid production base is heavily centralised Soviet-style.

Which brings us to Ukraine’s future as a defense industry superpower. Most of the country’s unmanned weaponry is fully utilised fighting the Russian behemoth. But Ukrainians are starting to sell to other countries a limited surplus and—more importantly their expertise– to help pay for the war. And when the fighting finally stops, Ukraine’s lead in the field will play a major part in financing the country’s reconstruction.

Recently President Volodomyr Zelensky made an unscheduled trip to the United Arab Emirates to talk to them about drone defenses for protection against Iranian missiles. The Gulf States are already well-equipped with American-made Patriot missiles and THAAD (The High-Altitude Air Defense) systems. But these cost up to a $1million per fired missiles whereas Ukrainian drones range from $2,500 to $25,000.

So far Kyiv has concluded deals—or is the final stages of negotiations with the following countries: Germany, Britain, Norway, the Netherlands, Romania, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Japan, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Syria. Defense experts estimate that sales of equipment and know could be worth $8billion this year, rising to $22 billion-plus in 2028. This means a substantial contribution to Ukraine’s defense budget of $80 billion. However, it is a drop in the ocean when one considers the estimated $500 billion in reconstruction costs.

The success of Ukraine’s drone industry has a wider financial impact than immediate cash revenue. It enables the country to project itself as an industrial power for decades to come which improves its ability to borrow on the international bond markets to pay for both the war and reconstruction.

The King and Trump

One does not discuss private conversations with the monarch. That is the convention—in fact, the rule—when talking with the British king.

There is an exceptionally good reason for this rule/convention. The king must be seen to be above politics. He must be to appoint prime ministers based on the wishes of the electorate rather than his own personal prejudices.

That does not mean that the king cannot discuss politics with politicians. And because he has been involved at the top end of the political process his entire life, he is well-placed to give advice. And he does. To political leaders around the world. He just does it PRIVATELY.

That is why eyebrows were raised when Trump revealed the contents of a private Oval Office conversation with King Charles when he told the world that the king is opposed to Iran having nuclear weapons. “Even more than I do,” he quipped.

The president’s comment was no great revelation. Of course, King Charles III is opposed to nuclear proliferation as Buckingham Palace made clear with a slightly raised eyebrow. That is the British government position, and the king supports the government of the day.

The king’s views on the subject are less important than the fact that – once again—Donald Trump has proven that he cannot be trusted to abide by the normal rules and conventions.

Iran

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump, iran, King Charles III and ukraine | Leave a comment

Observations of an Expat: Special Relationship

By Tom Arms | Sat 2nd May 2026 - 9:39 am

The phrase “Special Relationship” was coined by Winston Churchill in postwar triumph. It survives today in strain.

The call for Britain and America to continue their wartime alliance was a clarion call to defend against Soviet aggression.

It worked. The West won the Cold War and in the post-Cold War years the two countries have seen advantage – Britain more than the US—in continuing to cooperate in military and intelligence matters to counter terrorism and rogue states such as Afghanistan.

Of course, over 80 years, the “Special Relationship” has had its ups and downs. At the moment, it is having a serious down. King Charles’s successful visit has done little more than apply a sticking plaster to the widening transatlantic gulf.

However, the ties between Britain and the United States are more than political. As I make clear in my book “America Made in Britain” (note subtle plug), they cover the entire gamut of human relations and include language, trade, finance, philosophy, religion, law, sport, theatre, publishing…. The fact is that the two countries are joined at the historical hip and not even Donald Trump or JD Vance can change the past.

The political, military and intelligence ties that politicians call “The Special Relationship” would not be possible without our shared history.

Let us start with the law—the bedrock on which every nation is built. Every American state’s legal system is based on English common law. There is one exception—Louisiana’s French history means its legal system is based on the French. The federal courts and the Supreme Court use English common law and regularly refer to the Magna Carta medieval English court cases in their judgements.

Almost all the major American religious organisations—Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Quakers, Unitarians, Congregationalists, and Baptists—started in Britain before crossing the Atlantic. Roman Catholics secured their foothold in Maryland which was designated as a haven for Britain’s Catholics.

Britain and America are each other’s biggest foreign investor. American investment in Britain is $900 billion and creates 1.6 million jobs. Britain has $800 billion invested in the US and creates 1.4 million jobs.

America’s Declaration of Independence and constitution are the political expression of the English Age of Enlightenment. Sir Isaac Newton laid the foundations of the enlightenment in his 1687 “Principia” when he shifted the balance of society so that it was no longer based on faith and belief but on scientific observation and logically determined mathematical formulae.

Newton was followed in 1698 by John Locke who echoed the future words of Thomas Jefferson when he wrote in his “Two Treatises of Government that under “natural law” all people have the right to “life, liberty and property.” He further argued that that the governed have the right to overthrow incompetent rulers.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged special relationship | 21 Comments

What’s next? The West Wing and the case for liberal idealism

By Tanya Park | Fri 1st May 2026 - 3:28 pm

I came to The West Wing late. Not when it first aired, in that long forgotten world before 9/11 when liberal democracy felt like the direction of travel rather than a rearguard action. I found it about five years ago, the way you sometimes stumble into exactly what you needed without knowing you were looking for it.

Every year, I have watched it several times. My wife has opinions about this.

I am not going to pretend that watching a twenty-year-old American political drama is a political act. But I want to make a genuine case for why it matters to me. Not as escapism, though it is that too. As an articulation of liberal values that I have not often found dramatised so clearly or so honestly anywhere else.

The West Wing is not subtle about what it believes. It believes that public service is a vocation. That the people drawn to government at its best are not there for the salary or the proximity to power, but because they think the work matters. It believes that competence and compassion belong together: that doing your job well and genuinely caring about the people your job affects are the same impulse, not competing priorities. And it believes that idealism is not a phase you grow out of when you become serious. It is, in fact, the most serious position available.

I think that last part is the one that resonates most with me as a liberal. There is a particular kind of political tiredness that presents itself as wisdom. The knowing shrug. The weary insistence that this is how things are, and anyone who imagines otherwise hasn’t been paying attention. The West Wing refuses that. Not naively, not by pretending the obstacles aren’t real, but by insisting that the obstacles are not the whole story.

Posted in Op-eds | 1 Comment

ALDC by-election report, 30th April

By Liam Yip | Fri 1st May 2026 - 1:03 pm

This week marks the last by-election of the 2025-26 electoral cycle, and this takes us to the small Worcestershire town of Tenbury Wells.

Malvern Hills DC, Tenbury

This week’s by-election was triggered by the resignation of Conservative councillor Andrew Willmont. He came second in this two-member seat in 2023, significantly ahead of his Conservative running-mate, representing Tenbury alongside a Malvern Hills Independent, who topped the polls.

Turnout rose 7.5% in this by-election compared to the 2023 all-ups, with Reform coming out on top, from a standing start. The Conservatives slipped to a distant second place, whilst us and the Greens were even further behind, in third and fourth respectively.

Thank you to Jed Marson and the local team for flying the Lib Dem flag.

Reform UK: 687 (45.1%, new)
Conservative: 461 (30.3%. -20.2)
Liberal Democrats (Jed Marson): 193 (12.7%, new)
Green Party: 182 (12.0%, new)

Reform UK GAIN from Conservative

Turnout: 40.5%

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.

Posted in News | Tagged aldc local government by-elections | 5 Comments

A tribute to Nina Roberts #LibDemDog

By Ed Fordham | Thu 30th April 2026 - 7:50 pm

I’m sure people in all parties have dogs – but one thing I have learnt is that dogs and animals matter for Liberal Democrats. Animal welfare runs at the very core of much of what we stand for as was illustrated by the campaigns of Adrian Sanders MP, for example.

At parliamentary by-elections, so often the vital injection of electoral energy into our party lifeblood, there is often an animal hero at the heart of our campaign, the result and our story-telling.

Last night, Nina, beloved dog of Cllr Pete Roberts, and by-election stalwart, crossed the rainbow bridge after 14 human years of faithful service.

She was an exceptional dog: a lanky, brindle pup with white socks on her paws. Back at the beginning of their faithful partnership when Nina tapped her paw on the bars of the cage, she stole Pete’s heart.

Nina, NinaBo, bear, wolf, hyena, campaign wonder-dog. She had so many names and so many friends gathered over years of by-election attendance and campaigns.

Nina had five television appearances and of course the the well-known anecdote “I know that dog, she always turns up at places we can win, I need to get there tomorrow”. And that was just based on the photo on the first day in the North Shropshire parliamentary by-election (won by Helen Morgan MP).

For us Liberal Democrats we often talk about the family, and the loss of someone is a loss to all of us, but the pets and the quirks matter. In my own campaign in my own division Sparky the Husky is without a-doubt an electoral asset.

The warm reception and the depth of affection of Jennie the guide dog and Steve Darling MP from Conference and the wider Party tells you a lot about how much that family matters.

Posted in Obituaries | 2 Comments

Owen Hart deserved better: The Liberal Democrat case for fairness, safety, and dignity in professional wrestling

By Jack Meredith | Thu 30th April 2026 - 12:23 pm

For as long as I can remember, I have loved professional wrestling: the pageantry, the storylines, the ability to suspend reality, even for an hour, and immerse myself in the world of powerhouses and body slams.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun to appreciate the pressure that professional wrestlers are under to perform, night in and night out. For many people, wrestling is simply “fake”, but it’s more than that. The family of Owen Hart knows all too well about the human cost of the industry, as do thousands of other families.

In 1999, during the WWF pay-per-view “Over The Edge”, Owen Hart was set to portray his comical “Blue Blazer” character, a superhero that would regularly partake in pratfalls. On the day of the pay-per-view, Owen Hart confided in fellow WWF employee and industry legend “JR” Jim Ross that he was uncomfortable with the stunt, citing a fear of heights.

On the night of the show, as Hart prepared to take flight from the rafters, tragedy struck. The harness that he had been wearing malfunctioned before Hart had even left the rafters, dropping him almost 80 feet to the ring below. The referee for the match, Jimmy Korderas, recalled how he thought he could hear screaming while he was in the ring, before the top rope bounced back and hit his hand. Upon turning around, there was Owen, lying on the floor, unconscious.

Owen Hart died that night, at just 34 years old.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged professional wrestling | 7 Comments

Is it time to reinvent the Big Society?

By Callum Robertson | Thu 30th April 2026 - 9:48 am

At the heart of British liberalism lies a steadfast commitment to the individual their dignity, their rights, and their potential. We believe that by empowering individuals, we can enable people to lead richer lives while building a stronger, more cohesive society.

But liberalism is not simply about individual freedom. It is also about community – the relationships, institutions, and shared responsibilities that bind us together. Indeed, it is the politics of community that has underpinned Liberal Democrat success in places like Sutton, Three Rivers, and Watford, where local leadership has demonstrated the power of collective action electorally.

Yet when we look across our country today, it is clear there is much more to be done. Nearly one million young people are currently not in education, employment, or training (NEET), while many more face long-term unemployment or economic insecurity. These are not just statistics they are individuals and families in need of opportunity, support, and hope.

Despite this, there is a striking lack of urgency at the national level to embrace community-driven solutions. Too often, policy is designed centrally and delivered at scale, rather than rooted in the lived realities of local communities. One only needs to look at the gross incompetency of the DWP in administering welfare to know that centralised government lets down the individual and leaves them feeling lost in a system that is not built for the individual.

And yet, there are promising signs of what can be achieved when communities take the lead.

In Watford, for example, Liberal Democrat councillors in Meriden and Tudor wards are working with Bridge the Gap to deliver a targeted jobs programme, helping unemployed residents get back into work. Already, more than 30 people have signed up to receive support such as CV writing, mock interviews and more. While modest in scale, the impact is tangible. For those individuals, access to secure employment can be life changing.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged big society | 5 Comments

Ed Davey speech: We can’t let Trump’s America become Farage’s Britain

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 29th April 2026 - 7:45 pm

Ed Davey announced today a package of new Lib Dem policy aimed at ensuring that foreign actors have less influence in our politics.

He called for:

Banning payments from X and other social media platforms to politicians in the UK, including MPs.
Prohibiting anyone who has served a foreign administration from donating to UK political parties, think tanks, or campaign groups.
Banning foreign-funded online political adverts altogether.

The party will pursue these through amendments to the Representation of the People Bill.

Watch here.

The text is below

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged democracy, MAGA, political funding, reform uk and twitter | 5 Comments

A year of being gaslit

By Tanya Park | Wed 29th April 2026 - 5:45 pm

The evidence, one year on from For Women Scotland

A year ago this month, a judgment about the meaning of words in a single Act was received, by many people, as a ruling on what I am.

The judgment in For Women Scotland ruled that trans women, including those holding a Gender Recognition Certificate, are not “women” for the purposes of the Equality Act’s sex provisions. What it did not do was make any ruling about identity, personhood, or what trans women are. That gap, between a statutory definition and a statement about human beings, is where a year’s worth of bad faith has taken up residence.

Open any right-leaning paper this month and you will find the same story, told and retold. “Public bodies, charities and businesses are failing to protect women and girls.” “Trans inclusion has run amok.” “The fightback is gathering pace.” “Brave women are speaking up.” “Sensible institutions are at last waking up to the threat.”

My trans siblings and I have been living through this false narrative for the past year.

So let’s look at this supposed threat. TransLucent submitted hundreds of Freedom of Information requests to major public bodies in England between 2022 and 2024. Across 40 large local authorities, 35 reported zero complaints about changing room facilities, five held no records, and the single incident logged involved a cis person in the wrong facility. Across 102 NHS trusts, not one reported a complaint from a cis woman patient about sharing a ward with a trans woman. Four complaints, across 382 public bodies, over three years. That is the empirical record.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged LGBT and supreme court judgement | 7 Comments

The Mandelson debacle – Implications, Part 2 (remedies)

By Paul Reynolds | Wed 29th April 2026 - 8:55 am

On 25th April 2026 I wrote in LDV about the longer-term political background to the Mandelson debacle, referencing his time on Lambeth Council and the rise of the anti-left in the Labour Party, alongside the formation of the SDP, which partially sprung from there (see yesterday’s Guardian article).

The main conclusion of the LDV article was that Mandelson’s political orientation was shaped by opposition to the far-left in the Labour Party, (reinforced by the militant left’s control of Lambeth Council in the 1970s and 1980s). Mandelson’s close colleagues then, such as the subsequently ennobled Roger Liddle, Matthew Oakeshott, and the late George Thomson (associated with BBC and ITV governance), not only opposed the far left, they also objected to Thatcherism. They particularly opposed those of the left and right who were sceptical of internationalism and EU cooperation, especially dissenters from the quasi-corporatist European ‘social democratic consensus’. Mandelson stayed in the Labour party to fight the left, but Oakeshott and Liddle joined the SDP, the latter, being close to Mandelson, rejoining Labour after 6 years.

This group, and many Labour colleagues, believed that the Labour Party would never regain power again if it remained under far left control, hostile to ‘right-wing’ mainstream media and the big business and finance organisations behind them. Being cosy with international business helped get PM Blair elected in 1997, and softened media scepticism towards PM Starmer in early 2024. However, in cosying up to big business and finance, attitudes to economic elites and oligarchs began to border on adulation.

But there is a serious policy problem. The last 19 years has seen a transformation of the world economy, since the 2007-8 financial crisis. The rise of the Chinese economy has occurred alongside the rise of ‘financialisation’ and concomitant authoritarian bureaucratisation in the West; leading to increasing economic concentration and ‘stealthy monopolisation’. Asset prices rise in a bubble, as long term economic performance in the ‘real sector’ declines, and Western governments ignore the fiscal & debt sustainability tsunami.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged economy, liberal democracy and politics | 5 Comments

What is the economy for? Liberalism already knows the answer

By Roz Savage MP | Tue 28th April 2026 - 9:10 am

What is the economy for?

It’s a simple question. But how we answer it underpins everything else in politics.

We created the economy to serve us – to make life easier, safer, better. It is a human system, designed to help people thrive.

But somewhere along the way, that relationship has become inverted. Too often, it feels as though people and communities are expected to bend themselves around the demands of the economy, rather than the other way round.

For decades, we have treated GDP growth as the ultimate measure of success. If the number goes up, we assume things are getting better. But most people instinctively know that isn’t the full story.

GDP can rise while people feel less secure, less connected, and less hopeful. It can rise while our rivers are polluted, our soils depleted, and our public services stretched. It can rise while inequality widens and communities fracture.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured, gdp and wellbeing economics | 66 Comments

Mathew on Monday – Ed Davey, Trump, and why legitimate criticism being blamed for violence is nonsense

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 27th April 2026 - 6:05 pm

Early this morning on GB News I debated a former Tory MP (and the presenter) on why there’s no connection between our leader’s criticism of the present occupant of the White House and the alleged political violence that took place this past weekend -the argument simply doesn’t stand up to even the most basic scrutiny.

Let’s start with first principles. All political violence is wrong. Full stop. Whether it’s an alleged incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner this weekend, or the well documented events of January 6th, 2021 – when a mob of angry supporters of Donald Trump (arguably at his direct instigation) stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn a democratic election result – it is always indefensible. But what is both intellectually lazy and politically dangerous is the attempt to draw a straight line between robust democratic criticism and acts of violence. That’s not analysis – it’s deflection.

Because let’s be absolutely clear: Ed Davey criticising Donald Trump is not the problem here. It is, in fact, part of the solution.

We live in democracies. That means leaders – whether in Washington or Westminster – must be open to scrutiny, challenge, and yes, criticism. If a British political leader cannot express concerns about the rhetoric, behaviour, and record of this U.S. President without being accused by some of somehow “inciting” events thousands of miles away, then we are in very troubling territory indeed. Especially as, at the same time, I was being told that no one in the States has heard of the Lib Dem leader and that he has ‘no impact’ across the Atlantic.

Even as presented, the argument collapses under its own weight. Because it implicitly suggests that the real issue is not an act of alleged violence itself, but the existence of criticism that may have proceeded it. That is a profound inversion of responsibility.
And it also ignores the wider context. The United States has, in recent years, experienced a worrying increase in political tension and high-profile violent incidents, with experts pointing to the corrosive impact of genuinely inflammatory rhetoric and polarisation. To pretend that a British leader from the mainstream political centre is somehow the catalyst for that, or, indeed, plays any part in it whatsoever, is frankly absurd.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged birmingham, ed davey, keir starmer and political accountability | 7 Comments

This week in the Lords: 27-30 April (maybe) – “wishin’ and hopin’…”

By Mark Valladares | Mon 27th April 2026 - 4:22 pm

Fortunately, it’s not the hope that will kill you, especially in the upper chamber, but there is a high degree of uncertainty in terms of the week ahead.

Labour would doubtless love to prorogue on Tuesday, leaving the Lords to do so on Wednesday and avoiding the need to expose Sir Keir Starmer to another painful set of Prime Minister’s Questions, but there are still disputes between the two chambers on some key issues.

The Liberal Democrats have vowed to keep voting down the Government’s proposals in the Pension Schemes Bill allowing ministers to …

Posted in Parliament | Leave a comment

Our health system is cutting healthy life expectancy. Why isn’t everyone furious?

By Tom Reeve | Mon 27th April 2026 - 1:51 pm

The Health Foundation published a report yesterday that should stop all Lib Dems in our tracks.

Healthy life expectancy in the UK has fallen by over two years over the past decade. The average person can now expect to live in good health only until they are just under 61. We are ranked 20th out of 21 comparable wealthy nations. Only the United States is worse. In more than nine out of ten areas of the country, people cannot expect to be healthy enough to work until the state pension age of 66 or 67. In one in ten areas, …

Posted in News | Tagged health inequality | 12 Comments

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