Tanya Park

The new Gilded Age: A liberal case for radical reform

By Tanya Park | Tue 17th February 2026 - 11:55 am

In 1900, the wealthiest one per cent of people in Britain controlled an estimated 70 per cent of all personal wealth. By 1990, that share had fallen to under 20 per cent. It was the most sustained redistribution of wealth in British history, and it was not inevitable. It was the product of deliberate policy choices: progressive taxation, labour rights, universal public services, and democratic reform.

That settlement is now being unmade. The wealthiest one per cent of UK households again hold the same share of wealth as the entire bottom half combined. The 50 wealthiest families hold more combined wealth than 34 million people. UK billionaire wealth has grown roughly four times faster than median household wealth since 2008. We are living in a new Gilded Age, and it should trouble liberals deeply, because concentrated wealth is concentrated power, and concentrated power is the enemy of individual freedom.

This is the point that gets lost when inequality is treated as a concern only for the left. The liberal tradition, at its best, has always understood that freedom without material security is hollow, and that unchecked economic power threatens political liberty just as surely as unchecked state power. Lloyd George understood this when he introduced the People’s Budget of 1909. Beveridge understood it when he identified Want as one of the five giants to be slain. The question is whether today’s liberals are willing to apply that same logic to the new concentrations of wealth and power that define our era.

At A Just Society, we argue that they should, and we have set out a detailed programme for how. Our proposals operate across the same three domains that ended the first Gilded Age: taxation, universal provision, and democratic reform.

Limitarianism would introduce a progressive annual levy on extreme wealth: 1 per cent on fortunes between £5 and £10 million, 2 per cent up to £1 billion, and 3 per cent above that. The revenues would be earmarked for opportunity-enhancing investment: ending child poverty, a £10,000 citizens’ inheritance for young adults, care provision, and the green transition. This is not punitive redistribution. It is the principle that extreme fortunes built on shared foundations should sustain those foundations.

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Advert

How can the UK protect itself?

By James Worley | Tue 17th February 2026 - 9:28 am

Sir Ed Davey’s recent Defence proposal to start selling war bonds so that we can “move far faster” on UK defence spending, was welcome. The state of our armed forces is far poorer than these dangerous times call for. The UK’s ability to project its defensive capabilities within our own neighbourhood would be severely tested and likely found wanting if it were to be needed any time soon.

Whilst I was pleased to see that there were the beginnings of a party plan on funding the defence investment needed. I was left wondering how ready we are as a party for war, hybrid war or almost war. Sir Ed rightly called out that “we’re in almost a Cold War type scenario” with a nod to Russian use of drones, submarines and shadow fleets, calling it a “serious threat”. However, I believe this underplays our current predicament. 

If we take stock of where we are today: the Russian state has poisoned British citizens in Salisbury; assassinated an opposition leader in London; directed relentless cybercrime attacks against the UK costing us billions; had its ships cutting our allies communications cables; is likely directing drones interfering with our military bases; using our children as tools of attack against us; caused the death of many UK citizens through disruption to the NHS; is directing arson attacks on London and may be encouraging another migrant crisis to disrupt social cohesion. 

Is this peace? It doesn’t feel like it.

Is it too hard to believe that with a mixture of dark web, bitcoin, crime gangs and vulnerable youth we are close to the Kremlin orchestrating a campaign of disruption and destruction across Britain? Our transport links are vulnerable to something as simple as a person being seen walking on or near a train line. We’ve already seen what damage untrained amateurs can do to our defence capabilities.

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Rodrigo Palmer

All aboard the status quo: We don’t need a department for growth; we need a department for beyond growth.

By Rodrigo Palmer | Mon 16th February 2026 - 6:30 pm

Let me make this clear: GDP is not an accurate measure of prosperity. Nor is it an adequate measure of wealth. As Robert U. Ayres argues in “The Economic Growth Engine”, it is a measure of economic activity. It only accounts for capital that is generated as a result of the depletion of “natural capital” (i.e the environment).  It does not account for societal wellbeing; nor does it account for the losses of wealth (i.e pollution) resulting from the depletion of “natural capital” resulting from economic activity.

So with all of these limitations, why on earth are policymakers, politicians, and economists still using it as a metric for social and economic progress?

Not accounting for the costs of pollution is a choice, but the fact is that these costs remain present. The reason why we don’t see the costs of economic growth is because economists dismiss them as “externalities”. This is how the current Labour Government can justify that a “win-win for economic growth and natural recovery,” (DEFRA: Environmental Improvement Plan, 2025) can happen, even though growing the economy is inherently coupled to the depletion of the natural environment. You don’t get an economic product from nothing, you have to get the resources from somewhere, and that only comes from either the extraction from the natural environment or from solar energy.

Aside from the essential renewable energy transition which can use solar energy to fuel the pursuit of economic growth, there will always exist economic needs and thus industries that require the extraction of natural resources. The EV transition is an example of this, with electric batteries requiring the extraction of critical Earth minerals. The increasing demand for EVs due to the green transition will inevitably lead to greater depletion of the natural environment.

It can be correctly argued that a move to a circular economy will reduce the pressure for industry to extract resources from the natural environment. The circular economy is a vital component of an environmentally just world: by extending the life-cycle of products we can massively reduce the environmental impact of the economy. However, even if as Ayres argues that 100% recycling is theoretically possible in a closed system, it is not a practical aim.

As an item is recycled, the useful energy we can extract from it degrades over time. The more times we recycle a product, the more energy we have to put in to extract the useful energy out of it. We would have to put increasingly larger amounts of energy into a product to recycle it, and this aim is not realistic.

How many solar panels, wind farms, dams would we need to build to obtain this energy to recycle these products repeatedly, on top of the increasing electricity demand that we require for the green transition? Imagine the extent to which we would have to deplete the natural environment to extract the necessary raw materials required to build that.

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Mathew Hulbert

Mathew on Monday

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 16th February 2026 - 4:30 pm

On NATO, the extremes are a risk Britain cannot afford

For once, Keir Starmer is right.

When he says that Reform UK on the Hard Right and the Greens on the Hard Left pose risks to NATO and, by extension, Britain’s national security, he is identifying something serious.

From opposite ideological poles, both parties advance instincts that would weaken the alliance that has underpinned European security for over seventy years.

That should concern all of us.

Reform’s worldview is, from what I can tell, rooted in a kind of muscular unilateralism. Alliances are treated with suspicion. Multilateral commitments are portrayed as constraints on sovereignty. There is an underlying assumption that Britain would be stronger if it stood more alone.

History suggests otherwise.

Britain’s security has never rested on ‘splendid’ isolation. It has rested on partnership-on shared defence, intelligence cooperation and collective defence. NATO is not a bureaucratic luxury. It is the backbone of that system.

On the other side of the spectrum, elements within the Green movement have long been uncomfortable with NATO’s very premise. There remains a strain of thought that sees military alliances as inherently proactive and imagines that scaling back defence commitments would somehow make the world safer.

It would not.

In an increasingly dangerous world, with Russia waging war in Europe, authoritarian regimes flexing their muscles and global instability rising, weakening NATO would not reduce tensions. It would invite miscalculation.

Deterrence only works if it is still credible.

Now, let’s be clear. Supporting NATO does not mean pretending it is perfect. It must adapt to new threats. It must modernise. It must ensure democratic accountability and maintain public consent. Liberal internationalists should always press for reform and renewal.

But reform (small R) is not the same as retreat.

There is a profound difference between improving an alliance and hollowing it out.

The superficial attraction of the Hard Right and Hard Left to some may, arguably, be understandable. They offer clarity. They offer bold rhetoric. They promise decisive breaks with the status quo. In unsettled times, that can feel appealing.

But national security is not the place for ideological experiments.

Britain’s safety rests on stable alliances, credible commitments and steady leadership. NATO has preserved peace in Europe for decades precisely because it binds democracies together in collective defence.

Undermining that framework, whether in the name of nationalist sovereignty or moral idealism, would make us weaker, not stronger.

This is where the Liberal Democrats must be absolutely clear.

We are the party of responsible internationalism. We believe in NATO because we believe in cooperation between democracies. We believe in reform because we believe institutions must evolve. And we reject the isolationism of the Hard Right and the naïveté of the Hard Left.

The political centre is not a halfway house between extremes. It is the place where serious governing happens. In a world that is becoming more volatile, not less, Britain needs steadiness, credibility and alliances that work.

On NATO, that means strength and reform, not retreat.

We must back Vince Cable on a full and fair investigation into Andrew

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Adrian Sanders

Are Bank Account Rules the Answer?

By Adrian Sanders | Mon 16th February 2026 - 1:45 pm

By any measure, opening a bank account in the United Kingdom is a serious business. You prove who you are, where you live, and pass security checks designed to stop fraud and protect the public. Yet on social media—platforms that shape elections, fuel abuse, and influence our children—anyone can appear with a fake name, no identity, and no accountability.

It’s an absurd imbalance, and rather than ban people from social media, it’s time we corrected it.

If we were to apply the same identity-verification rules used by UK banks to the creation of social media accounts it would be a long-overdue step toward basic digital responsibility—one that would reduce fraud, curb anonymous abuse, and help law enforcement respond to real threats. 

Banks don’t demand ID to be nosy – they do it to keep the system safe. The same logic applies online. Social media has become a place where anonymous accounts can target individuals, spread disinformation, or commit fraud with near-zero risk.

A system could be established where users would verify their identity using a government-issued document, proof of address, and a simple biometric check—just as they would at a bank. Crucially, this doesn’t mean everyone must post under their real name. Pseudonyms and anonymity in public spaces would remain. But behind the scenes, platforms would be required to know who is using their services, and to share that information with law enforcement when legally required.

Some might argue that such a policy could harm people without standard documents. But there are alternative verification pathways—through trusted charities, local authorities, schools or emerging digital-identity schemes. The intent is not exclusion, but protection.

Victims of online harassment know the pain of being attacked by nameless profiles. This policy would give those victims something they rarely get today: a real route to justice.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 15th February 2026 - 9:13 am

Endangerment Finding

It is true that, as President Trump says, that ending the 2009 “Endangerment Finding” of the Obama Era will be a major boost for the American car industry. It will probably help the Europeans as well.

It is also true that it will save car buyers more.  Trump is on the money when he says that the move will knock $2,800 off the price tag of every new car that rolls off a Detroit assembly line.

It is also a gold-plated economic fact that the deregulation will put billions of dollars in the pockets of fossil fuel companies and their shareholders.

The 2009 “Endangerment Finding” is the foundation stone upon which a a big chunk of subsequent climate change legislation is based. It basically says that fossil fuel emissions—especially those from cars–  are a danger to public health and should be regulated.

Any cyclist, motorcyclist or pedestrian that has stood behind a car for more than half a minute knows for a fact that breathing in car fumes is bad for you. But Trump—and the oil executives and manufacturers of petrol-driven cars—have decided that anyone who thinks so is peddling a “green scam.”

But cyclists are not alone. The UN has reviewed over 10,000 research papers on climate change and spoken with more than 10,000 climate change scientists. 97.1 percent of them say that our planet is warming. That this is a bad thing and cars are a major cause of the problem.

In 2024 greenhouse gases reached 424 parts per million, the highest ever in recorded history and 152 percent above pre-industrial era levels.

In the United States, cars, trucks and buses account for about 29% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Since Trump took office America’s fossil fuel emissions have grown by 1.9 percent.

But petrol and diesel are not the only polluters. Coal produces almost double the amount of greenhouse gas emissions as the transport  industry, and the latest developments in renewable technology means that renewable energy is now about half the cost of coal in both building and maintenance terms.

On the same day that Trump announced the end of the 2009 Endangerment Findings, the American coal industry presented him with a trophy and bestowed on him the title of “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal.”

The Washington Post

My first news story was published in “The Washington Post.” I was a 13-year-old boy scout, and I wrote a 500-word article on badge-swapping at the Scout World Jamboree. It actually appeared on the front page with my byline. I was quite chuffed.

So, for me, the rapid decline of “The Post” has a personal element. It is even more personal one-third of the Post’s staff who were recently laid off. They are the victims of a changing media-scape and Donald Trump’s attack on the free press.

When the founder of Amazon, billionaire Jeff Bezos, bought the Post in 2013 for $250 million everyone heaved a sigh of relief. The Post had been struggling for years against the onslaught of the internet. If it was going to survive and prosper it needed an owner with deep pockets who believed in its mission and was prepared to inject millions—billions if necessary—to maintain the Post’s  position in the pantheon of the great world newspapers.

Bezos promised to do just that. The local subscriber base had been shrinking as more and more readers switched to social media. So Bezos’s plan was to increase the subscriber base by going global. Which he did.

For about seven years, the Post thrived. And one of the reasons was that Bezos remembered the paper’s left of centre roots. Every editor must know what his readers want to read and produce articles that meet that demand. The Post’s readers are left of centre. They are mainly Democrats. During Trump’s first term Bezos kept to the paper’s traditional editorial line and it became a major thorn in the side of President Trump.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Panic

By Tom Arms | Sat 14th February 2026 - 10:02 am

Trump is panicking. He knows that come November the Republicans are highly likely to lose control of the House of Representatives. They may also lose control of the Senate, but it would take an electoral miracle for the Democrats to win the two-thirds majority necessary to boot Trump out of the White House.

But loss of the lower house would be bad enough. It is the lower house that could impeach him for the third time.  Democrat-control of the House of Representatives, can, make it very difficult for Trump to continue to implement his far-right agenda. They can investigate all of the actions of his first two years and block, impede and obstruct anything he has planned for the final two years.

The multi-million dollar jet given to the future Trump presidential library by Qatar will come under scrutiny. The same goes for all the business deals struck by his family and friends and the bitcoins the family have floated. The politicisation of the civil service; tariffs; weaponisation of the Department of Justice to attack his political opponents; pardons for the Capitol Hill rioters and various cronies; misuse of emergency powers; questionable expansion of presidential powers and, of course, the Epstein files, will all come under a Democrat-controlled political microscope.

For the past 18 months the public have been asking: Where are the Democrats? Well, they have been they have been collecting evidence and biding their time. In a radically divisive America, they had little room for manoeuvre without a majority in either of Congress’s two houses.  Every time the Democrats tried to act, they were blocked by Trump’s congressional lapdog, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.

That will change dramatically if – as expected—the Democrats win control of the House of Representatives in November.

Which is why Trump is panicking. And he is panicking now because he needs to start employing every clean and dirty political trick to prevent a Democrat win.

The president has already tried gerrymandering—the redrawing of electoral boundaries to ensure the desired result. This backfired. Republican Texas complied with presidential wishes, but their moves were made redundant by counter gerrymandering by Democrat-controlled California.

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Mary Reid

New policy working group: Empowering Consumers

By Mary Reid | Fri 13th February 2026 - 7:40 pm

The party is seeking members for a new policy working group, called Empowering Consumers.  The group will be aiming to prepare policy proposals for Spring Conference next year.

If you would like to know how policy is decided in the Liberal Democrats, and how policy working groups fit in, then there is a useful guide here.

In brief, policy groups meet in person and online and take evidence from professional and industry experts before crafting a policy paper. The paper is then distilled down to provide a substantial set of proposals which form a conference motion. They also carry out a consultation of conference members before finalising their findings.

The brief for the Empowering Consumers group is:

People often feel powerless in the face of not only public services, but also utility companies, arms-length government bodies and many large businesses. They don’t feel able to hold them to account, and too often don’t see anyone else doing it effectively on their behalf

A new cross-cutting, thematic working group will develop concrete policies to deliver on our liberal promise to put real power in people’s hands and hold the already powerful properly to account.

If you are interested in joining the group then you can apply here.

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Chris Ward

ALDC by-election report, 12th February

By Chris Ward | Fri 13th February 2026 - 4:27 pm

There were three principal council by-elections this week, and all three had a Liberal Democrat on the ballot.

Tuesday saw the poll for a new councillor in Fishguard North East ward on Pembrokeshire County Council. This had a big increase in candidate numbers, after the straight Labour-Conservative contest last time. Caleb Churchill and the team achieved a good second place here, as Plaid Cymru gained the seat. A great effort, and a solid base from which to win next time.

Pembrokeshire County Council, Fishguard North East
Plaid Cymru: 253 (33.8%, new)
Liberal Democrats (Caleb Churchill): 135 (18.0%, new)
Reform UK: 95 (12.7%, new)
Labour: 83 (11.1%, -47.9)
Independent (Tannahill): 79 (10.5%, new)
Conservative: 69 (9.2%, -31.9)
Independent (Tyrrell): 35 (4.7%, new)

Plaid Cymru GAIN from Labour

Turnout: 48%

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Tom Reeve

When billionaires self-combust 

By Tom Reeve | Thu 12th February 2026 - 4:10 pm

You’ve got to admire Sir Jim Ratcliffe. It takes a certain kind of genius to build a bonfire out of football tribalism, Brexit politics, tax avoidance, right-wing dog whistles and historical colonial sensitivity, set fire to it and then throw yourself on top. As self-immolative performance art goes, it is unbeatable.

The Manchester United co-owner managed to offend almost everyone this week by declaring that Britain has been “colonised by immigrants”. Not “immigration has risen” or “we need border controls” or any of the hundred ways you can open a debate on migration policy without sounding like you’re auditioning for Reform UK. No, he reached for “colonised” – the one word guaranteed to make historians wince, former British colonies seethe, and Man United’s Muslim Supporters Club issue a statement questioning your basic decency.

The Monaco resident – Sir Jim moved there in 2020, saving himself an estimated £4 billion in tax – also found time to claim Britain’s population had risen from 58 million in 2020 to 70 million now. The actual figure was 67 million in 2020. But why let the Office for National Statistics ruin a good rant?

This is the same Sir Jim who wants UK taxpayer money for his stadium project. The same Sir Jim whose football club employs players from a multitude of nationalities and whose fanbase spans the globe. The same Sir Jim whose club’s success was built by Cristiano Ronaldo, Eric Cantona, and generations of immigrants who apparently “colonised” Old Trafford into 13 Premier League titles.

Even the masterful wordsmith Kelvin MacKenzie couldn’t save him. The former Sun editor gamely tried, pointing out that Ratcliffe has “paid more tax than his critics combined” – which would be more persuasive if Ratcliffe still lived somewhere with income tax. 

Admiring Kelvin’s masterful display of cognitive dissonance, Duncan Bannatyne declared “I’m in”, before launching into a diatribe about billionaires in Monaco being different from boat arrivals because they’ve “paid into the system”. A bold claim about someone whose entire Monaco strategy was specifically designed to stop paying into the system. On Dragons’ Den, that would get you five outs and a clip on YouTube titled ‘Worst Pitch Ever’. Even Kelvin must have been wishing Duncan were a silent partner. 

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The Jenkinsite Group

A Jenkinsite debate on breaking up the Treasury

By The Jenkinsite Group | Thu 12th February 2026 - 1:03 pm

Daisy Cooper’s call to break up the Treasury and create a new Department for Growth is the kind of proposal that deserves more than reflex applause or suspicion. It is not simply a change of ministerial job titles, but a complete restructuring of the British state, and it raises the question of whether such restructuring helps or hinders long-term prosperity outside Westminster and London.

What follows is a friendly, Jenkinsite-based debate between two Liberal Democrats who agree on the destination: a Britain where wealth, power and opportunity are less concentrated, and where institutions are accountable to the whole country. Where we differ is on the mechanism; Jack argues that breaking up the treasury would begin shifting economic decision-making closer to the places that live with its consequences, whereas Andy is more cautious and asks whether restructuring Whitehall risks repeating old patterns unless it is matched by deeper decentralisation.

We both offer views in the spirit of liberal pluralism: serious, practical, and aimed at better outcomes.

Jack Meredith:

A Jenkinsite case for Daisy Cooper’s Department for Growth is simple: Britain cannot devolve prosperity while Whitehall retains the economic steering wheel. “Treasury brain” is not just a habit; it is a structure. When one department controls fiscal policy, economic policy and spending approvals, it naturally prizes what can be booked this year over what pays off over a decade. That bias has helped trap the country in low investment, weak productivity and regional imbalance.

Breaking up the Treasury is therefore a decentralising reform in practice, not only in rhetoric. A Department for Growth with a clear, long-term mandate would change incentives across government; growth becomes an organising principle, not an afterthought. Pairing it with the Department for Public Expenditure also clarifies responsibility: one institution drives prosperity; the other disciplines spending. That separation matters because it reduces the temptation to raid future growth for today’s headlines.

Basing the Growth Department in Birmingham strengthens the message. Location is policy. Moving a major economic department out of London signals that the UK’s economic story cannot be written from one postcode. It forces ministers, officials, and stakeholders to view the national economy as a network of places rather than as a single city with a hinterland.

This reform fits liberalism’s core purpose: dispersing power so that citizens and communities can shape their own futures. A growth department can be the engine room for “Team UK”; a single front door for business, trade, and investment, aligned with national priorities and better living standards. It can also sharpen Britain’s external focus, as a serious growth mission requires fewer trade barriers, especially with our nearest markets.

If we want to get Britain growing again, we should start by rebuilding the state around long-term prosperity and start moving economic power closer to the country it serves.

Andy Chandler:

I should perhaps begin with a small confession. When I first proposed to Jack that we write on the Liberal Democrats’ announcement to “break up” the Treasury from a Jenkinsite perspective, I was initially ambivalent. It did not feel like the bread-and-butter reform I had hoped for, though I broadly welcomed the principle of loosening the grip of the Treasury “blob,” which so often seems to restrain rather than enable. Yet when I learned Jack was favourable, I decided, for the sake of debate, to re-evaluate my position to see if I could articulate an opposing view.

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Tara Foster

What is the point of LibDem Conference?

By Tara Foster | Thu 12th February 2026 - 10:30 am

On Tuesday, a somewhat cryptic message went up on Lib Dem social media promising a “big announcement” at 09:00. Naturally, expectations were raised. When a Party primes its members and supporters like that, you assume something substantial is coming — a major defection, implementation of a flagship policy passed by Conference, or a decisive shift in direction.

Instead, what we got was… rebranding the Treasury as the “Department of Growth.”

A dull, inoffensive, and uninspiring ghost of New Labour if ever I saw one.

We’re told its functions will be reorganised and the whole department relocated to Birmingham. For a policy supposedly rooted in growth, this sounds like a costly exercise in administrative musical chairs. Moving a major Whitehall department is not cheap.  Rebranding is not cheap.  Structural upheaval is not cheap. If the goal is efficiency, this feels like a curious starting point.  And, I’m not going to lie, naming it the Department of Growth (DOG) sounds concerningly close to Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), and the last thing we need to do is to follow Labour into echoing MAGA slogans—though, at least, we haven’t paired red baseball caps with our resemblant new slogan. To me, it all sends entirely the wrong message.  

But, on top of this being a confusing policy move, the way this has been handled and communicated undermines the fundamental democratic foundations of the Party.  

As Liberal Democrats, we pride ourselves on being member-led and listening to our members.  Our Federal Committees, Federal Council, and Federal Board are formed of members who are elected to their positions.  They’re accountable to the membership and can be removed by the membership.  Meanwhile, policy is debated, amended, and adopted at Conference through a 1 member, 1 vote.  We all acknowledge that this is not an optional extra—it is the democratic heart of the Party and is what sets us apart from Reform, the Conservatives and in more recent years, the Labour Party.

So I am genuinely confused as to why this announcement has been presented as settled Party Policy when it does not appear to have been passed through Conference. Conference exists for a reason: to ensure that members, not just the Parliamentary Party, determine the Party’s direction. If we circumvent that process, even for something that might seem technical or presentational, we chip away at what makes us distinct. 

I have a massive problem when the Parliamentary Party just does stuff, and unilaterally writes its own brand new policy, rather than applying their own initiative to implement policy.  Not to bang the same drum, but I do find it suspect that very little noise is being made in the Parliamentary Party about recently passed Party Policy such as Free to Be Who You Are, as well as the several historic conference motions passed on Universal Basic Income.  It remains clear that Conference-approved policy is not treated as gospel, but as advisory rather than authoritative. 

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Tanya Park

Parliament is falling down. Liberals should seize the moment.

By Tanya Park | Wed 11th February 2026 - 12:12 pm

Last week, the Restoration and Renewal Client Board published its costed proposals for saving the Palace of Westminster. The options have been narrowed to two: a full decant costing up to £15.6 billion over 20 to 25 years, or a semi-decant that could take 60 years and cost approaching £40 billion. A £3 billion first phase of works would begin this year.

The debate that follows will focus, as it always does, on where to put MPs while the building is fixed. Richmond House? The QEII Conference Centre? How big should the temporary chamber be?

But there is a more interesting question, and it is one that liberals should be leading on: why do we still assume that 650 MPs need to be in the same building at all?

We already know this works

During the pandemic, the Commons went hybrid. MPs participated remotely in questions, statements, and debates. Select committees took evidence from witnesses across the country and the world. Electronic voting functioned securely. The Hansard Society found that remote committee work was one of the most valuable innovations of the period, and Liberal Democrat MPs were among the highest users of hybrid participation.

Then Jacob Rees-Mogg ended it, forcing a return to physical-only proceedings without even allowing a debate on extending the arrangements. The Hansard Society called the decision “over-hasty, poorly thought-through, unwise and unnecessary.” MPs with disabilities, caring responsibilities, and constituencies hundreds of miles from London were simply shut out.

That decision was wrong then. Revisiting it now, when Parliament faces its biggest logistical crisis in a generation, is not just sensible. It is a democratic opportunity.

This is a liberal argument

The case for hybrid working is not really about technology or convenience. It is about who gets to participate in democracy and on what terms.

Westminster’s culture of presenteeism is a filter. It selects for people who can spend four days a week in London, maintain two homes, endure late-night votes, and have no caring responsibilities that conflict with an unpredictable schedule. It penalises MPs with disabilities, new parents, and anyone whose constituency is not a short train ride from SW1. It concentrates political power in London and weakens the connection between MPs and the communities they represent.

Liberals have always understood that institutions are not neutral. They shape who participates, whose voice is heard, and how power is distributed. A Parliament that requires permanent physical presence in central London is not a level playing field. It is a system designed by and for a particular kind of person, and it excludes others by default.

Hybrid working would not eliminate the demands of the job, but it would make those demands compatible with a wider range of lives. That is not a perk. It is a basic condition for a more representative democracy.

The building becomes something better

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Caron Lindsay

UPDATED: Daisy Cooper announces new economic policy – Get Britain growing again

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 11th February 2026 - 10:11 am

In a major speech in the City of London this morning, Daisy Cooper has announced Liberal Democrat plans to break up the Treasury and move it to Birmingham.

A new Department for Growth would include the Department of Business and Trade’s responsibilities and would have a mandate to boost long term sustainable growth. It would be a single point of contact for business and investment.

A smaller department for public expenditure would control departmental spending

Stronger economic growth would be recognised as the only sustainable solution to the country’s problems. This would come alongside a better relationship with Europe.

This department would align tax policy so that Labour mistakes like the rise in employers’ National Insurance Contributions could never happen again.

Basing it in Birmingham would be a strong signal that we want to rebalance the economy across the whole country and as the only party with MPs spanning the Highlands and Islands to south west,  we see the differences in growth between the south east and everywhere else.

She argued that if we could close the productivity gap between Birmingham and London,we could boost tax revenue by $4 billion which could, for example, provide 80,000 teachers

She said that rising inequality and cost of living pressures were grinding people down. The C0nservatives and Labour have failed and the British public who are left wondering if anyone knows how to fix it.

This all comes with a slogan: Get Britain Growing Again.

Farage wants to break things, not fix them. Others want to hoard power in London. Conservatives are chasing Reform saying that moderates are not welcome in their party.

She said our future liberal economic vision are rooted in the values which have guided us for hundreds of years. We champion international trade, fair markets and wealth creation.

Wealth creation and social justice, she argued, are two sides of the same coin. She concluded:

We believe we can give people a sense of hope, end the cost of living crisis and build the UK’s future by all of us for all of us together.

She then took questions from journalists. The BBC’s Nick Eardley asked how she could justify the time and money to be spent on this. Daisy replied that the plan was  entirely consistent with existing plans to move civil servants out of London. We would prioritise this particular department. He followed up by asking why Birmingham rather than the north of England, Scotland, Wales?  Daisy’s answer: our second city has good combination of manufacturing and financial sectors and if we boost it will help other places around the UK too.

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Caron Lindsay

UPDATED: Jim Wallace’s funeral takes place in Kirkwall

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 10th February 2026 - 8:27 am

UPDATE: A brief reflection on the service that took place earlier today.  If you knew and admired Jim, and haven’t seen it, it will be up for a while here.  I’m not going to tell you too much about it, but there were some stories that illustrate Jim perfectly, from the things he was excellent at, grace and kindness being mentioned a lot, to the things he was less good at. It sounds like he might have been less good at DIY than I am and that’s saying something.  And there are some things you might be surprised to learn. 

His brother Neil gave the most perfect tribute, as requested by Jim a few days before he went into hospital for his operation.  The best euologies are crafted so that you are lifted from sadness with laughter and this was no exception. There was one point where I was about to dissolve into tears and then he said something really funny and everyone laughed. 

Liam McArthur told us about their long working relationship, which started in a noisy pub in Edinburgh Waverley station. Alistair Carmichael shared his one abiding memory of Jim, which may surprise you. It will not be what you think, but in other ways, it will be exactly what you think. 

It is a very fitting summary of a life lived with  love, empathy, kindness,  ferocious intellect, modesty and humour with liberalism at its core. We’ll all be raising a glass to Jim tonight, I expect.

Many Lib Dems have been heading north to Kirkwall over the past couple of days for Jim Wallace’s funeral whihc takes place in the beautiful St Mgnus’ Cathedral in Orkney today.

Theer have been a few photographs of people stopping to campaign with Highland candidates David Green and Neil Alexander on the way, and no doubt we’ll see the same tomorrow as people make the return journey.

Our thoughts are very much with JIm’s wife Rosie, daughters Helen and Clare and brother Neil and all those who were close to Jim.

The service will be livestreamed here

Christine Murdoch and I thought it might be a good idea to open a Zoom room for those of us who will be watching online. We might need a gentle space where we can have a cup of tea and a chat afterwards. If you want to join us between 1 and 2, email caron@libdemvoice.org for the link.

Alistair Carmichael paid tribute to Jim in an article for Politics Home which you can read here. He said:

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Caron Lindsay

Dunfermline by-election – 20 years on from an historic and unexpected victory

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 9th February 2026 - 8:04 pm

Twenty years ago today, I and many many Lib Dems took to the streets of Dunfermline at the crack of dawn to deliver our Good Mornings.

We were quietly hopeful that we would be able to “Send Willie to Westminster” which was a bit of a miracle given the pickle the party found itself in at the time. Our leader Charles Kennedy had just resigned after a bit of a psychodrama and many of us felt pretty bloody annoyed about that. During the by-election campaign itself, there were multiple tabloid stories about potential replacements.

But when we are under the kosh, we can do great things. The party worked together to deliver a fantastic campaign. Willie Rennie was well known from the very north of Scotland to the very foot of Cornwall so activists came north in huge numbers. We quickly established momentum with a petition to remove the tolls on the Forth Road Bridge.

People in the then brand new Eastern Expansion were fed up of the construction traffic which led to the famous “Mud on Roads” special Focus.

I was on casework, working with Ed Maxfield who once co-wrote a book on winning elections. I joked that he used to spend his days shifting work from his desk to mine, but most of my work came from an energetic candidate who seemed determined to pick up at least 3 pieces of casework from every door he knocked on. He’d bound in at 9pm every night and hand it all over.

Downstairs, Liz Barrett ran many things, including front of house. She’s now a councillor in Perth. Working alongside her was Gladys Herbert. Gladys had not been involved in politics before but had married the local party chair a few months before. She took to it all so well and was so generous with her time. Everybody just adored her by the end of the campaign.

James Simpson was a very popular local councillor for Dunfermline City Centre, a ward now held by Aude Boubaker-Calder.  James famously took a good hour to walk from one end of Dunfermline High Street to the other because people kept  chatting to him. His knowledge and passion for the people of his ward were invaluable to me as I worked through the casework mountain.

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Mathew Hulbert

Mathew on Monday: Labour has lost its way – and the country is paying the price

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 9th February 2026 - 4:30 pm

Watching the unfolding political drama in Westminster over recent days, you could be forgiven for wondering if the British public have been dropped into an episode of ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ rather than living real lives under a Labour government. Instead of focusing on the pressing challenges facing everyday Britons – from the cost of living to the NHS crisis – the spotlight has been firmly fixed on internal Labour turmoil, bitter factional rows and the fate of its own leadership.

The resignation on Sunday of Sir Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney, amid the controversy over Peter Mandelson’s appointment as UK Ambassador to the United States, was always going to make headlines. But the speed with which that story has dominated the political coverage tells you everything you need to know about where Labour’s priorities lie. McSweeney stepped down taking “full responsibility” for advising on the appointment – a move that critics argue has damaged trust in politics itself.

And, as if one senior departure wasn’t enough, the Prime Minister’s director of communications, Tim Allan, has today also quit fewer than twenty-four hours later. In a terse statement, Allan said he was making way for a “new No.10 team.”.

But what the public see is not reinvigoration – it’s retreat, upheaval and instability at the heart of government.

All this comes at a time when families across the country are still struggling with inflationary pressures on essentials and long delays in accessing NHS care. Hard-pressed workers, young people, and pensioners do not wake up each morning thinking about Downing Street personnel changes – they worry about whether their energy bills are manageable, whether their children’s surgeries are being scheduled, or whether their parents will be left waiting hours in A&E.

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Caron Lindsay

Alex Cole-Hamilton’s tribute to Jeane Freeman

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 9th February 2026 - 2:45 pm

There’s too much sadness around at the moment. We are losing too many good people. I was really sad to see this morning that former Scottish Health Secretary Jeane Freeman had died. She had that role during the pandemic and had also been a Special Adviser to Labour First Minster Jack McConnell.

I remember saying to her when I congratulated her on her appointment that it was clear that Nicola Sturgeon was giving her most difficult job to her most competent Minister. She had previously been responsible for setting up Social Security Scotland which she did pretty well. I was involved as our Social Security Spokesperson in the discussions around the legislation and I was impressed at her willingness to listen to opposition parties and build a consensus.

I feel so much for her partner Susan Stewart. They’ve had over 20 years together and it feels particularly cruel that she has lost Jeane not that long after her own retirement.

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Christine Whelan

Celebrating Progress – Leading with Pride

By Christine Whelan | Mon 9th February 2026 - 1:40 pm

This recent cross-party weekend organised by the Local Government Association brought together councillors from the Liberal Democrats, Labour and Conservative groups from across the country. While it was encouraging to see such a broad geographic spread, it was disappointing that no other parties were represented and that the South of England was noticeably under-represented. Even so, the diversity of experience in the room made for a rich and thoughtful programme.

The theme of the weekend was Leading with Pride — and how that sits alongside both your role as a councillor and your identity as a member of the LGBT+ community. …

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Caron Lindsay

What’s happening in York? Lib Dem Spring Conference agenda now published

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 8th February 2026 - 11:06 am

It’s less than five weeks to York Spring Conference. Many of us will be looking forward to returning to the beautiful city to debate, be trained and to learn from exhibitors and discuss issues at fringe meetings.

The agenda has now been published. This is your chance to go through it now and work out what motions you might like to amend, to plan out your diary for the weekend and not to just leave it till you’re actually on the train to York.

You can go to debates on access to driving lessons, preserving trial by jury, revitalising town centres, universities, mental health, Donald Trump and Council finance.

There are speeches from MPs Anna Sabine and James MacCleary and Watford Mayor Peter Taylor, as well as Ed, of course.

You can help shape future policy by going to consultative sessions on international security, primary healthcare and defending democracy.

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Caron Lindsay

Why Vince is wrong about Gorton

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 7th February 2026 - 10:45 am

Jackie Pearcey surrounded by orange diamondsHowever much I love Vince Cable, I can’t let his comments urging people to vote tactically for Labour in the forthcoming Gorton and Denton by-election pass without comment. He told the I Paper:

He pointed out that in previous by-elections and at the last general election, the Lib Dems had benefited from tactical voting by presenting themselves as the main anti-Conservative force in certain areas.

Cable – who was business secretary in the coalition government before leading his party from 2017 to 2019 – said: “First of all, the Lib Dems are not going to win here.

There is a flipside to tactical voting – the Lib Dems have benefited from perfecting organised tactical voting, and there is a reciprocal side of it that when we stand no chance of winning, we have to be honest about what we would do instead.

We do have a duty to get behind the candidate – and the sense I get, we’re all floating in the unknown here, is that whether it’s local surveys or the kind of feedback our people are getting on the ground, is that, for all the problems of the Labour Government they are still strong enough to present the main challenge to Reform and we have got to therefore get behind them.

Where he is right is that we do, of course, encourage tactical voting when we are in a position to win a seat. Squeezing the third, fourth or fifth place candidates’ votes is a legitimate campaign tactic. We need those people to vote for us if we are going to do well.

And I suspect that many Lib Dems vote tactically to stop other parties at the same time as campaigning in target seats to ensure other Lib Dems win. And I’m not going to judge them. However, it’s not for us to pro-actively encourage our supporters to vote a certain way. It’s for the party who wants their vote to persuade them. We might, by the size of our campaign in a particular area not stand in their way but we should always be about encouraging people to vote Lib Dem.

The party spokesperson who responded to Vince’s comments did so with respect, which was good.

Vince Cable has made an invaluable contribution to the party over the years and he is entitled to his own view.

As a party we’ll always make the case for voting Liberal Democrat, and that’s why we’re standing a candidate in Gorton and Denton and fighting for every vote.

For me, though, there are no circumstances in which I could vote Labour at the moment. There is a time when I might have considered voting tactically for them. The closest I ever got was in 2015 to counteract the SNP surge. However, I voted Lib Dem because I didn’t think my Labour MP was worth saving.

Not now, though. Labour are clearly worried about the Scottish Parliament elections because they canvassed me a couple of months ago. I told them that they had disappointed so much on various things, such as the two child payment, Starmer’s “island of strangers” speech and the way they had thrown trans people under the bus that I wouldn’t even give them a preference in a Council election (we have STV up here).

I don’t necessarily have a problem with the idea of voting for another party to stop Reform. Farage’s party is the ultimate nasty party that brings the worst of Trumpian politics to Britain. And we only have to look at innocent protesters being gunned down by barely trained thugs on the streets of Minneapolis, people being ripped from their families and sent to prison in another country without due process, the blatant corruption (Trump has enriched himself by a minimum of $1.4 billion) in the first year of his second term and the dismantling of the international order and democracy itself in the US to know that we don’t want that here.

But Labour’s answer to Reform has been to imitate them, to ape their narrative and paint themselves as a sort of Reform Lite. And the more they do that, the more the Reform narrative on immigrants, on marginalised groups of people, becomes embedded.

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Mary Reid

BREAKING NEWS Whip removed from Chris Rennard pending investigation

By Mary Reid | Fri 6th February 2026 - 8:40 pm

 

Note that we are not allowing comments because of the pending investigation.

 

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Liam Yip

ALDC by-election report, 5th February

By Liam Yip | Fri 6th February 2026 - 1:32 pm

This week, there were two principal council by-elections. Only one contest had a Liberal Democrat candidate.

In the seaside town of Clevedon, where Labour was attempting to defend this seat, they managed to hold, albeit with an unconvincing margin against Reform. Thank you to Jude Chambers and the local Liberal Democrat team for flying the flag.

North Somerset Council, Clevedon South
Labour: 350 (29.0%, –25.4)
Reform UK: 334 (27.7%, new)
Conservative: 224 (18.6%, –27.0)
Green Party: 197 (16.3%, new)
Liberal Democrats (Jude Chambers): 100 (8.3%, new)

Labour HOLD

Turnout: 36.8%

There was no Liberal Democrat candidate in the Welsh contest. Here are the results:

Isle of Anglesey Council, Ynys Gyni
Reform UK: 603 (43.9%, new)
Plaid Cymru: 343 (25.0%, –3.7)
Labour: 171 (12.5%, –11.3)
Green Party: 118 (8.6%, new)
Conservative: 112 (8.2%, –13.1)
Independent: 26 (1.9%, new)

Reform UK GAIN from Plaid Cymru

Turnout: 33.3%

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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Mary Reid

Carl Cashman on the BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! podcast

By Mary Reid | Thu 5th February 2026 - 7:54 pm

Slightly left field interview here with Carl Cashman, Leader of the Lib Dems on Liverpool City Council.

Is he correct?

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Jack Meredith

Tactical voting is a tool, not an instruction

By Jack Meredith | Thu 5th February 2026 - 11:54 am

By-elections invite panic. Turnout drops, narratives harden fast, and parties start talking as if politics is a single emergency in which only one “responsible” outcome is acceptable. The coming Gorton and Denton by-election in Greater Manchester is already being framed that way. In the i paper, Vince Cable is reported urging Liberal Democrat supporters to vote Labour, and leaning into an “Operation stop Farage” style argument.

I understand the instinct. First Past the Post encourages defensive voting, and Reform thrives when an election is reduced to a binary contest. Many liberal voters will look at the race on polling day and decide that they want to block Reform. That is their right, and it is their decision.

The problem is not tactical voting. The problem is senior figures trying to choreograph it.

When voters are told where to park their ballots, it turns citizens into pieces on a board. It accepts the most corrosive lesson of First Past the Post: that politics is about managing fear rather than choosing a programme.

Liberal Democrats should be arguing against that distortion, not modelling it.

Worse, it hands Nigel Farage the story he is always trying to tell. Populism thrives on the claim that there is a single political club, an establishment, and that outsiders must break it up. Cross-party nudges to fall in behind Labour make that claim easier to sell. Even when the intention is sincere, the optics look like a stitch-up; they validate the “they are all the same” posture that Reform uses to recruit protest voters.

The i report captures the awkwardness. A Liberal Democrat source described the seat as “a big safe Labour seat”, then pointed to the elephant in the room: reciprocity. Liberal Democrats are often urged to be the grown-ups, to make space, to stand aside. Labour is rarely asked to do the same for us. When we benefit from tactical voting elsewhere, it is usually because we have earned trust locally and persuaded voters directly.

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David Allen

Have you heard the one about…

By David Allen | Thu 5th February 2026 - 9:41 am

… the Three Politicians who walked into a bar?

“Mine’s a pint of Red!” declaimed the Socialist.  “For Society, Fairness and Solidarity.  With Labour in charge, of course!”

“Beg pardon” said the Liberal “but I don’t like your coarse chumminess.  Individual Liberty must come first.  I am the Captain of my Soul.  A glass of Yellow, if you please!”

“While you two are fiddling” declared the Green “The planet is burning.  We only need buckets of water!”

“I don’t understand you people!” said the Barmaid.  “Isn’t it obvious that we all need to be free, happy, thriving  individuals, living in a fair, harmonious and successful society, and all working to save the planet?  Why can’t you work together and get things done, instead of squabbling amongst yourselves?”

“We’re not squabbling!” chorused the Politicians.  “We are holding profound philosophical debates which are crucial to all our futures!”

“Rubbish” chipped in the Landlord.  “All we need is a decent government which cares about putting things right.  Just look at the jailed subpostmasters still not getting justice.  Look at the Ombudsman ruling that the WASPI women should get compensation and the Government refusing to pay.  Look at the ever-growing queues for the law courts, driving tests, council house repairs, NHS operations, everything.  What are your political philosophies any good for?”

“Well” piped up the lady from the Advertising Agency, as she sipped her G&T.  “Democracy is all about salesmanship.  To win, you need a strong narrative.  Philosophy can help.  The Socialist narrative of solidarity and equality was once very successful.  The Liberty narrative served Britain well during Hitler’s war.  But since then, philosophy has taken a back seat.  Macmillan went for the prosaic narrative ‘You’ve never had it so good’.  Then Starmer made it ‘You’ve never had it so bad!’”

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Caron Lindsay

Jeremy Purvis’ tribute to Jim Wallace

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 4th February 2026 - 2:57 pm

The House of Lords also paid tribute to Jim Wallace yesterday.

Our leader in the House of Lords, Jeremy Purvis led the speeches. You can watch here.

My Lords, many of us aspire to be a good politician, to do good and to be a good person. More times than not, we fall short. Jim Wallace was a good man who saw it as his role in life to do good things. He did, and they will last. With great sorrow, we have been denied the opportunity of hearing a valedictory speech in this House from Jim. He would have been characteristically modest. We can perhaps be a little immodest on his behalf for a now profoundly missed absent friend.

After his early political days in the lowlands of Scotland, he triumphed in its most northerly part. When he was elected, many said he was the MP for Jo Grimond’s seat, but in short order we referred to it as Jim Wallace’s Orkney and Shetland. As MP, MSP and Peer, he saw serving in Parliament as the means by which good things can be done, not the end in itself. He was what a parliamentarian should be.

When speaking in Parliament Hall on the day of the opening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, Jim was achieving his ambition and the dreams of many in delivering what Gladstone could not a century before. He said to all those newly elected MSPs:

“As the people’s representatives we should never forget the hopes kindled by this historic opportunity”.

He approached his role to meet those hopes as the first Liberal in office since the Second World War with zeal: land reform, law reform, social reform, education reform, prison reform—radical but workable—and all have endured, none reversed. Jim was a reformer, but he knew that for reform to last, it had to be done well. He said of the new Holyrood:

“Our Parliament must be open and inclusive—willing to consult and willing to listen”.

That sentiment embodied his own approach to politics.

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The Voice

Willie Rennie’s tribute to Jim Wallace

By The Voice | Wed 4th February 2026 - 1:58 pm

It is part of Jim Wallace’s legacy that three of our MSPs worked for him in some capacity. Willie Rennie was the Chief Executive of the Scottish Lib Dems who helped us win 17 seats in the new Scottish Parliament in 1999. He then went to Holyrood to head up our operation there for the first term.

This is his tribute to Jim yesterday:

The text is below:

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The Voice

Alex Cole-Hamilton’s tribute to Jim Wallace

By The Voice | Wed 4th February 2026 - 12:58 pm

Alex Cole-Hamilton also worked for Jim Wallace – in the Scottish Parliament Liberal Democrat staff pool.

Here is his tribute in yesterday’s Scottish Parliament session, detailing when Jim and his wife Rosie first met. The rest of the speeches can be seen here.

The text is below.

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Caron Lindsay

Liam McArthur’s tribute to Jim Wallace

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 4th February 2026 - 11:55 am

There have only ever been two MSPs for Orkney: Jim Wallace and his successor Liam McArthur. Liam worked for Jim as a Special Adviser when he was First Minister. You can see Jim’s influence in the way that Liam works to bring people together.

Yesterday the Scottish Parliament held tributes and flew flags at half mast. We start with Liam’s heartfelt tribute to his old boss and mentor.

The text is below:

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