Labour's SEND white paper gets the destination right and the journey wrongToday's Schools White Paper on SEND reform is, in certain respects, a document Liberal Democrats should welcome. The investment is substantial: £1.6 billion for an Inclusive Mainstream Fund, £1.8 billion for specialist services, and a long-overdue write-off of 90 per cent of local authority SEND deficits that were pushing councils toward effective bankruptcy. The aspiration, a well-resourced, inclusive mainstream, with early intervention, genuine specialist support, and families treated as partners rather than adversaries, is the right one. The problem is not the destination. It is the route the government has chosen to get there. A right is not the same ... (more) |
Mathew on MondayHope from The Hague: What Rob Jetten's victory means for liberals everywhere Today, in the Netherlands, something quietly historic has happened. Rob Jetten, leader of Democrats 66, has become Prime Minister. The youngest ever (at 38) and the first openly gay person to hold the office. Pause on that. In a European political landscape where we are so often told that the future belongs to the angry, the polarising and the populist, the Dutch electorate has chosen something else. They have chosen the broad, confident Centre. They have chosen liberalism. For we Liberal Democrats, there is real encouraging here. Yes ... (more) |
Mysterious blue glow traced to Flying BananaBBC News wins our Headline of the Day Award with this tale of mysterious Lincolnshire: Is it a UFO? Is it the Northern Lights? No, it's the "Flying Banana". A blue glow that has lit up Lincolnshire's night sky in recent weeks has been traced to an unlikely source: a bright yellow train. Network Rail said the mysterious light comes from its new measurement train - nicknamed the Flying Banana - which looks for faults on the line for engineers to repair. The company said on hazy nights, equipment from the yellow train can create a blue glow "that looks ... (more) |
New UK Border Regulations display contemptuous disregard for dual nationalsIn mid February, UK dual nationals were alerted by media reports to an imminent change in immigration regulations. This involves the requirement that dual nationals present their UK passport at the overseas airline check-in desk before boarding any flight to the UK, or that they present (alongside their foreign passport) a 'Certificate of Entitlement' to Right of Abode in the UK, priced at a whopping £589. This deeply concerns many of us in Liberal Democrats Overseas, and we expect the Party to speak out loudly and forcefully on this matter. Will Forster MP, our shadow immigration and asylum minister, has ... (more) |
Last week's byelectionsThere were three council byelections last week (I don't include town and parish councils). Things to note about these contests:Labour were defending all 3 seats. They lost all of them.The seats fell to Plaid Cymru, Greens and Lib Dems.Reform won nothing. I think this is the first time since the May 2025 elections in which Reform came away empty handed.In Caerphilly, PC's share of the vote was (more) |
Sanne Djikstra-Downie on the importance of Pupil Support AssistantsSanne Dijkstra-Downie will, we hope, be an MSP in May. She is standing in the target constituency of Edinburgh Northern and heads the Lothians list. At Scottish Conference this week, she spoke in our pre-manifesto debate to highlight one particular commitment which is particularly important to her – the provision of Pupil Support Assistants in schools. The pre-manifesto commits us to: Boost in-class support in every school by inflation-proofing Pupil Equity 270 Funding, hiring more pupil support assistants (PSAs), and ensuring teachers 271 are given proper stable contracts instead of short-term and zero hours work. Sanne said: As one of ... (more) |
Tackling flooding in SunnisideOn Friday last week, I carried out a tour of Sunniside in my council ward to look at flood risk areas and solutions. I was accompanied by my ward colleague Marilynn Ord, and engineers from both Gateshead Council and Northumbrian Water. They are working on plans to tackle flooding. We are hoping that the plans will be completed and go out to public consultation in the coming months. I had (more) |
An early handwritten election letter: Charles Curtis Craig in 1910A staple of election campaigns for several decades has been the (lookalike) handwritten letter, usually on one or two pieces of A5 paper and delivered in a handwritten envelope. The letters are typically handwritten by the candidate and then printed, while the envelopes are more frequently individually hand addressed by volunteers. The whole effect is to stand out from other election literature, and also to provide an appropriate medium for a more personal message from a candidate. Common now, and even spreading to organisations outside politics, their origin is usually dated to well into the second half of the twentieth ... (more) |
The Joy of Six 1479Richard Reich argues that employers will not share the gains from AI unless they are made to: "If the five-day workweek with five days of pay shrinks to four days with four days of pay, and then to three, and to two, and perhaps one, AI will supplant most people's work and drive down our take-home pay. We may see a dazzling array of products and services spawned by AI, but few of us will be able to buy them." "In opposing these children's homes, neighbours resort to language about children in care that they would not use for other ... (more) |
This is how wars startI've watched the images of two American aircraft carriers moving toward the Middle East and I don't feel reassured. I feel uneasy. Let me say something clearly before anyone tries to misrepresent this: I despise the Iranian regime. I despise what it does to its own people. I despise its repression of women, its crushing of dissent, its morality police, its execution of protesters, its export of proxy militias, and its cynical use of religion to entrench power. The Iranian people deserve better than the system that rules them. But despising a regime does not mean losing the ability to ... (more) |