UKH

Stop Brexit

(Probably) the most virtuous and rigorously designed mix of higher tax and extra borrowing of the main parties

Hypothecation of the 1% tax increase to pay for NHS investment - it doesn't pose the question of how government is going to pay for the NHS, it answers how we are going to pay for it

80% renewable electricity by 2030 - this is achievable

Tax frequent flyers - let the polluters pay

20% uplift to zero-hours wages - a premium for uncertain conditions, as recommended in the Taylor report and practised in Australia

Legalise cannabis

Resettle 10,000 refugees

Did I mention Stop Brexit?

Is this not a UKC-friendly set of policies?

You had me until the legalise cannabis part...

I like it, though not overwhelmingly so. I would have liked to see some policies to more directly reverse the gutting of the benefits and social assistance fabric that has taken place under austerity.

I would ideally have liked to see something about electoral reform in there too. It’s absence suggests either that they’ve (probably correctly) deduced that it’s too soon after the last time and they don’t want to be seen as a one trick pony, or more cynically they think they’re got a shot at taking Labour’s place in the two party flip-flopping.

In a different constituency, I would happily vote for them (even more so if Swinson lost her seat) But I think the numbers mean I’m going to have to vote Corbyn. 

I like that bit!

I'd rather see them raise the minimum wage to £10 an hour, end zero hour contracts, commit to eliminating food banks and tackling the lack of affordable housing for first time buyers.

I acknowledge it's high time someone stood on a legalise it ticket but I don't know what they have to say about drug abuse in general.

It could stop people being people trafficked into living in unsafe environments while working in illegal cannabis farms and remove it as a revenue stream for criminal gangs. They can end up being surrounded by unsafe wiring, and living and cooking in the bathroom of a terraced house while 'paying off their debt'. I think it's a good idea.

Like millions of others renting in the capital...

How do you propose only taxing frequent fliers? Why not those doing a one off?

It's certainly the best we're going to get

According to the Taylor report, zero hours contracts are widely liked among contractees for their flexibility and as a valuable gateway into the world of work for hundreds of thousands of citizens. It’s the abuse of the arrangements that is problematic. I don’t think you can do fairer than to implement the recommendations of this wide-ranging official study. Neither of the other parties is doing so. They’ve had enough of experts.

There’s a housing commitment in the manifesto too. I just posted my faves. 

It’s not me proposing it. I've read that the rationale is that frequent fliers greatly outnumber occasional fliers as measured by air miles/total pollution and it would be possible to increase the overall tax income by focusing heavily on the frequent contingent, while dis-incentivising their polluting ways. All while pleasing the vast majority who take only one return flight per year. Neat. 

Ed Davey on R4 today said that electoral reform remains a policy, though obviously not a salient one in the context of today’s headline pledges

I'm sure they'll like it in outlying parts of Alston and Nenthead

One of the founders of Wikipedia, millionaire Jimmy Wales, was on TV yesterday saying that he has no choice about continually flying around the planet and that he is quite happy to pay a Carbon Tax, because "It's paying for the damage I'm doing.", like it absolves his guilt.

Hmmm, is it?
Where, and what will be done with these Carbon Taxes?

I think of my step son being treated like shit by KFC in Princes Street Edinburgh. Getting up a 5.30am on a December morning to get into work on time to asked what he was doing there. And no it wasn't just once and it wasn't just that employer. Young people at the bottom of the employment food chain are treated appallingly.

No doubt the flexible arrangement of a zero hours contract suit some people who are confident they will always have enough money to get by on and don't need a mortgage but for many it is a precarious and miserable existence.

Zero hours contracts allow bad employers to be bad employers.

But let's not get sidetracked. 

The 80% renewables by 2030 for example. When would they plan to achieve 100% and what about the rest of measures necessary to reach the requirements of the Paris Climate Agreement?

What's their policy on nuclear weapons?

And the proposed policy would increase their wage by 20%. Not to be sniffed at.

No one is denying that.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/resource/static/files/import/eu...

80% is a good target. It's ambitious but certainly attainable at the current pace of change and with our natural resources. 40% is the level reached already. The shortfall recognises that 100% is a real challenge until energy storage is perfected.

I read today JS said she would press the button herself

Course it is. I'm lucky to live in a lib dem seat (the notorious queer-bashing Tim farron, no less) which is unluckily very marginal with the tories. If you don't vote LD here, you're a f*cking idiot. 

I think one objective of that policy is to try and make zero hours staff more expensive and therefore less desirable to reduce the number of those roles in existence. Seems like quite a good way to try and get people off those contracts without a heavy handed approach. 

One unintended consequence could be that all the permanent workers ask to go on the more lucrative, less secure basis!

Wouldn't that mean that she would have to be surrounded by salty seamen?

I doubt many people would give up job security for a pay increase of just 20%. The contractor's mark-up is typically considerably more than that, and rightly so as it needs not only to cover lack of earnings due to periods of unemployment, but also plenty of other benefits of full time employment such as holiday pay, pension entitlement, etc.

The 2 full years of free childcare being offered represents a substantial increase in the welfare state. I should have listed that one.

There is also a promise of 20,000 more teachers and a £10k skills wallet for every adult.

Isn't this potentially very dangerous (from a Remain point of view and the horror of another Tory govt)?
I may have said before that that instantly loses half the electorate.
But what about (ery) Leaveish seats with floating EU voters who may have voted for LD or Labour?  Revoking A50 promise will just push them to voting Con.

Not good!

have they mentioned the universal living payment instead of the benefits system?

I agree. I’ve thought it was a mistake since they announced it. A platform of ‘an immediate referendum and we’ll campaign for remain’ would have made them more ‘remain’ than Labour but avoided the accusations of subverting democracy (non sensical though they may be).

Their only hope would have been to really hammer home the ‘the withdrawal agreement is just the beginning’ message and hope the voters prefer immediate revocation in preference, but I don’t think they’ve done that. 

Resettle 10,000 refugees,

here or in their home country?

I make no apology for celebrating a centrist, economically prudent, socially-conscious and bold, yet moderate, programme.*

*Not my words - from the editor of the FT

Does no one else have a Google? It’s not like I’ve got JS on speed dial (oh, be still, my beating heart). Look it up!

I'll vote for the Lib Dems when the explicitly promise to end religious discrimination in schools, such that state, taxpayer-funded schools can no longer treat pupils from religious families as first-class citizens and pupils from non-religious families as second-class citizens.   

Simply repealing the exemption that state schools have (quite ludicrously) from the 2010 Equality Act would achieve that.

If they're not willing to commit to that then I'm not willing to vote for them.  Ditto the other two parties. 

?

isnt the point of this forum to share personal knowledge, on line?

Libdem manifesto looks to be pretty good in general. I'd be happy to vote for them on the basis of it. Their campaigning does them a disservice; I've seen a number of election materials that quite deliberately distort reality for political gain. Not to the level of the outright Tory lies, but disappointing nonetheless.

However, all of that is pretty much irrelevant for this election, since the only party that anyone in their right mind should be voting for in their constituency is the one that has the best chance of denying the Brexit-Con alliance a seat in parliament. It really is that simple. The rest can, and will, be dealt with later.

Revoke is the only logical and practical policy for a remain party, although it has the disadvantage of being unpalatable to those who think that that stupid referendum is actually worth something.

If your policy is 'remain with 2nd referendum' as many LDs had wanted, what the f*ck do you do if you lose the referendum? Implement Brexit? Come off it. Another GE? All together now, "not ANOTHER one!?"... 

I agree with you about the policy, but it seems an odd one to hang 100% of the balance of your vote on. I guess that means you're not voting? Is that really sensible?

It’s a fair point, but similar to how I’ve been beating on Labour in other threads for having an idealised platform that will be ultimately useless if they don’t get enough middle ground voters to get elected I think a ‘revoke’ policy, while ultimately the best option, is useless for the Lib Dems because it’s too extreme to get the party elected in the first place. 

But without a logical and practical remain policy, why should anyone vote LD? It's not as if they're after the leave vote, like poor old JC.

Well, no Parliamentary seat in history has ever been decided by one vote.  It's not as though any one person's vote is going to determine the outcome. I get a tiny little vote that is only 1/50,000th of the voting in my constituency.   So I feel free to indulge a pet hobby horse.

If Boris, Jeremy and Jean-Claude all telephoned me and offered me the casting vote on Brexit I might feel differently.    

Are you actually campaigning for the LDs in Calder Valley?

Comment wasn’t aimed at you. You just happened to be in line when my tea was ready!

Fair enough - who's offering the policy for you to indulge? And can you stomach their other policies? Or are you not voting?

Twitter has gone a bit daft with Ed Davey saying, vaguely, that they'd work with a Tory minority government to get a second referendum. Andrew O'Neil show apparently. 

According to the FT, their spending plans fall in between the two parties but the Lib Dem’s are relying on an extra source of “income” on which their rivals cannot lean - the lack of an exit from the EU. Difficult to define the relative value of that but it’s an interesting policy argument which lowers their forecast for borrowing by a considerable margin. There are new tax increases for the better off as well.

Dream on. Sounds like you should be enthusiastic about proportional representation.

Well they’ve stood down in my constituency - Forest of Dean. I kind of respect them for that sacrifice. It’s not that marginal - Mark Harper has been pretty secure here since 2005. But without the libdems this seat becomes a bit more marginal. The Brexit party are also going to be absent from ballot papers, I had hoped that they’d take enough Tory votes away to give Labour a chance. I guess the absence of the full set of parties here will give people a stark choice. I’m still pessimistic about removing our incumbent MP but that’s only an act of mental self preservation. 

Watch this constituency in the early hours of 13th Dec.

And my full sympathy to our excellent Green Party candidate who won’t be getting my vote even though their policies and his integrity and personal commitment deserve it.

I doubt it’s either logical or practical. An attempt to implement revoke would end in a legal challenge and years of further paralysis and stagnation of parliamentary business over the paradox that is Brexit.

Legal challenge to revoke? Why/how? I guess they'd need to pass some legislation to overturn the Brexit stuff that's been passed, but with a majority what would the problem be?

Well it’s all a bit hypothetical because they won’t get a majority. But adopting a ‘we know best’ on Brexit stance would of course end in a legal challenge.
A referendum result cannot be ignored as much as Lib Dem voters may yearn for it.

I'm sure there'd be all sorts of legal challenges based on various technical points. However the referendum result has nothing to do with any issue of lawfulness. In fact, its non-binding status protects the referendum result from legal challenge.

Politically binding is a different issue of course. But in the parallel universe in which the Lib Dems secure a majority with a Stop Brexit promise, I think the outdated-and-dubious-in-any-case mandate from 2016 would evaporate overnight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_close_election_results

According to this page there's been a dead heat with the returning officer choosing, a single vote difference and several 2 or 3 vote differences in UK elections.

LDs force a referendum on a minority Tory government. Corbyn is replaced, having lost the election. Referendum happens, remain wins and A50 revoked. Johnson resigns/is forced out. This forces another general election with new party leaders, essentially resetting Parliamentary democracy.

Likely turn of events?

In the unlikely event that the parallel universe comes to pass next month, I’ll watch with interest how the simplistic Stop Brexit promise pans out for the Lib Dems. 
 

I have a zero hours contract in one place I work and I like it a lot. I'm not tied to any particular hours. The rest of my work is pretty seasonal, so I can take less from them in my busy season and more in the quiet season.

Zero hours in its self isn't the problem, it's the abuse of them.

North East Fife had a 2 vote margin last time round! I'd say in current times, every vote really does matter!

As a swing voter who normally lears towards the tories I will be voting LD this time. 

I don't have any faith or trust in BoJo and his cronies and Labour will crash the country faster than a helicopter with engine failure with their spending and taxation plans. 

Probably not voting.  I didn't vote last time, owing to not finding any of the candidates attractive enough. 

Last time I emailed the local candidate of the three main parties and said I'd vote for them if they supported the exemption that schools have from the 2010 Equality Act.   Replies from Lib Dem and Labour candidates said they were personally sympathetic, but couldn't openly support something out of line with party policy, while the reply from the Tory was irrelevant boiler-plate.

Are you a drug dealer? because that's probably the only rational reason to take this stand.

The pressure for at least a second referendum would be overwhelming. I'd be interested to know how you imagine it would be stopped.

The sales pitch for PR is all about "every vote counts", but it's a myth.   In reality, there's no more likelihood of one vote making a difference to who the MP is than in the current FPTP.

That follows necessarily since the number of MPs is vastly smaller than the number of voters.  With 45 million voters (ok, maybe 25 million who will vote), and 650 MPs, there's only a tiny chance that any one vote will alter the outcome. 

Norway has a number of unassigned non constituency seats. They go to representatives of parties that win many votes but proportionally few seats. In the UK this would have been the greens, UKIP etc in the last GE. 

I'm not in the country until election day. And I'm not a party member.

Is that the pitch for PR though? Isn't it more that "every vote counts the same"? You could envisage a situation where the counts are all in except for one final constituency. The two major parties are currently tied on seats. The vote in that constituency is a dead heat, and the returning officer suddenly has all the power.

The odds of that are vanishingly small of course. But I think I saw a statistic at some point that at one of the recent elections, due to the distribution of safe/marginal seats, if less than 9000 people had voted differently the election would have gone the other way.

Much as I hated UKIP, returning 1 MP on 12.6% of the vote in 2015 is a democratic outrage.

Yep. And as we are currently seeing with the Brexit debacle, suppressing the dissatisfied minority voices does not make them go away.

Actually that brings to mind another shortcoming of the Lib Dem platform. What I would have liked to see alongside some variety of ‘stop Brexit happening’ plan is an acknowledgement that that vote did not come out of nowhere and some proposal of how to start identifying and tackling the dissatisfaction that Farage and co have so successfully focussed on the EU. 

I’ve not read the manifesto itself yet so it’s possible that’s in there, but I haven’t seen any commentators mention it 

Non-binding. Non-binding. Non f*cking binding. Whatever legal challenge was raised I cannot see how it would play any role. 

It would be more a "we've been elected" stance than a "we know best", wouldn't it?

Says who? Where does this idea come from that the stupid 2016 referendum is the trump card in our democracy, and somehow overrules the result of a GE. Bonkers! 

No. The sales pitch of PR is that the number of MPs is proportional to the number of votes, i.e. the preferences of the nation are represented in proportion to their prevalence. 

I remember when I was a kid learning that contrary to my assumption that this was how voting worked, we had a totally different system where the government depended on where people who voted for the different parties lived, whether they were clustered together or spread out round the country. I thought it was barking mad, and I still do (although I'm now more familiar with the arguments about its benefits).

Easy.... everyone gets taxed when they buy tickets, each person has the ability to claim a tax refund/reduction on say one short haul flight a year.

Why not those doing a one off?  yes tax them, but the real problem people are those that commute back and forth for many times a year etc

As likely as anything in this GE. 

Do you not think it's a risky move considering 2010 is still fresh in some memories/toxic? Does nothing to assuage the yellow-tory claim. 

Seems populist and poorly thought through.  They'd need to have some kind of database to track everybody's flights against a passport number and then from a passport number to a tax id if they were going to add it to an end of year tax bill.

Also, the people who do a lot of intercontinental flights are usually flying on business.  Why should they pay more for their holidays because their employer sends them abroad?  Do we really want to put up the costs of exporting companies who need to visit customers?

The other aspect is why just intercontinental flights.  A lot of the fuel is burned up on take-off, cruising at high altitude is relatively efficient  and arguably short-distance flights are less necessary because there are other options.

I'm not au fait with the Act/exemption. Could you (or others) outline it? Thanks. 

Reducing CO2 emissions is hardly populist.  The details do indeed need work but the idea is sound.

Or use NI number, as for other taxes.

Probably implement the tax on businesses too, as with other taxes.

It's that or fail to curb CO2 emissions, so yes, in a controlled way.  It would also need to be done internationally, which will of course be tricky/impossible, which probably means we will fail and in 50 years be utterly f*cked.

Agree here.  Short-haul should be included.

There will no doubt be frequent flyer exemptions anyway...like there were in the old days of 90% income tax on higher earners.In those days if people  travelled overeas for I think it was more than 60 days a year, the 90% tax was reduced to the basic rate. In Belgium they still have the same guidance to encourage people to export ( so I am told).

If your company is considered useful to the Uk economy, then no doubt any party would be battered into submission to give concessions. Like mine- export manufactured goods- 90%. Pay lots of corporation tax.Frequent flyer - yes( although it is reducing, we also air freight machinery.And the equipment paradoxicaly is used to help  make heavy vehicles and agricultrual equipment more green and enviromentally friendly.

Frequent flying internally around the UK would be a better target.

I am voting LD.The 1p on all tax payers is just plain sensible economics.

If everyone who thought that actually voted for the party they want to see in power, rather than attempting to second-guess the system, the LibDems might actually stand a chance.

That's a left-wing construct. If they end up supporting a Labour administration, the other half of the political spectrum (representing more of the popular vote) will accuse them of being yellow Trots!

One could argue that being able to get the tax refunded might encourage more ‘one off’ flying. Green taxation is meant to be as much a deterrent as a fund raiser. The cost of the system would also need to be ‘profitable’.. we know how good governments are at wasting cash on IT systems. 

A prospective candidate attempted to do the same in High Peak, but they now have a new candidate. I'm glad that they do, as these tactical voting pacts disenfranchise voters (such as myself) who would rather not vote to put either of the main two parties in power and leave them with little option but to spoil their ballot.

Yeah, it's a good set of policies. However their lack of pragmatism has almost certainly delivered us a Conservative majority of crackpots, liars and wreckers which will make these policies and others like them irrelevant in this cycle and likely impossible for many subsequent cycles too. That is unforgivable.

jk

I think you'll find that that there has, in the past, been a case of an actual tie, where the decision on who became the MP was actually settled by the toss of a coin.

One vote may seem small, but what happens if a second person thinks like that, and then a third, and ..... ?

That's fair enough but a) it seems to dial back on their stated ambition to be real contenders not just a partner - weakness? b) they've not got recent form for being in coalition with Labour. They have with the Tories. They lost Hallam specifically because of that. 

A legal challenge to a NON-BINDING Referendum ??

Thanks for the proof Trevers, I was too lazy to do the googling.

If you didn't vote then you have no grounds to complain when the sh*tfest that runs the country does whatever they want.

Yes but under the current system there is a very significant chance 1,000,000 (or even 4M!) votes make no difference to the outcome as measured in seats. That is the issue PR seeks to address, not the case where 1 vote changes who gets a seat.

In 2015 Labour secured 206 seats with 8M votes, by contrast UKIP secured just one seat with barely less than half of Labour's vote share, 3,6M! You're a bright guy, if you believe it convince me that is and appears just.

jk

I think as long as they delivered a second referendum, their voters would be assuaged. I don't think anyone's trying to pretend that Swinson is closer to Corbyn on the political spectrum than she is to Johnson. What hurt the Lib Dems was not just forming a coalition with the Tories but reneging on tuition fees which was a central pledge designed to appeal to a block of first time (and hence more idealistic) voters.

FWIW, despite being a devout remainer, Swinson has not enamoured herself to me. Regardless of how tempting it is, I do think the pledge to straight out revoke A50 is wrong in principle, especially for a party that used to be in favour of PR.

That being said, I'd vote Lib Dem tactically if they were the best placed candidate to keep out a Tory.

Except that one can look at the outcome in my constituency and note that had I voted it would have made no difference. 

True, but this was in the days before universal franchise when there were vastly fewer voters, and so ties or 1-vote outcomes were much more likely.  

Sure, if you want MPs to be in proportion to votes then PR is the way to go (obviously).  

But, if the aim is to elect a government, then I'm not convinced (based on how things work across Europe etc) that PR produces better governments.   There's drawbacks with all systems. 

Adding a simple caveat of 'where the LD secure >50% of the vote and form a government we will revoke...' would have killed most of the criticism but 'stop brexit' is much catchier! I can see the flack being worth taking on that on for the clarity of message.

Me too with gritted teeth.

jk

The Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful for a government body or employer to discriminate against or treat someone unfairly because of religion or belief, or their lack of religion or belief.

Schools were given an exemption from this.  Which is mind boggling, if there is any institution you would want so *most* upload Equality-Act principles it is schools, surely??

So state, taxpayer-funded schools can discriminate against pupils based on their religion or their family's religion or lack of religion.   E.g. they can admit pupils based on whether the family attends church. 

Schools can also adopt a "religious ethos" which entails systematically discriminating against non-religious children in much of school life and treating them as second-class pupils.

No-one would accept, for a minute, that a taxpayer-funded school could have a "white people" ethos and discriminate against non-white people. 

No-one would accept, for a minute, that a school could have an ethos favouring a particular political party, and then discriminating against pupils with different views. 

Indeed, from polling in 2018, just 17% of respondents said they agreed with the statement: "Publicly funded schools should be able to select pupils on the grounds of their religious beliefs".

So why is this still accepted?  None of the political parties will say a squeak about this, so I'm not voting for them. 

PR delivers governments. Whether they're better or not always remains a matter of perspective but one can argue it produces governments forced to find common ground, whose policies are moderate, considered and evidence/outcome driven ahead of ideology. Again, whether you consider that better is a matter of perspective, personally I do.

Only a fool would claim there's a perfect system. That said, ours is shit!

jk

Thanks for the reply. 

How? The people who vote tactically - or those who do if they've got any sense - are those in marginal seats where their preferred candidate is not first or second most popular. Changing that dynamic isn't going to get Jo Swinson elected as PM!

Except that if the two broad "government" and "opposition" coalitions are near evenly balanced, then a small, fringe group with the balance of power can hold everyone to ransom.   (Just think of the UUP at the moment.) And of course PR leads to fringe groups getting MPs.  So you might have UKIP or even the BNP holding the balance.  Happy? 

And you don't necessarily get "evidence/outcome driven" policies, you can simply get stalemate, or weak governments endlessly compromising (where "compromising" between factions isn't the same thing as "evidence/outcome driven" policies).

In the 2017 GE the seat for East Fife was decided by just 2 votes. And a further 9 seats have majorities of 75 or less.

https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-8067

Happy no but then I'm not happy with the current system returning Conservatives either, I'd be happier if it were returning greens but I'd still dislike the system. likewise, as for the example you give I can be happy with the system but not the outcome, that's fine because the outcome can and will change with time.

As is I don't like the FPTP system because it is and obviously appears grossly unjust, it forces the holders of minority views, kippers and greens for example to remain unheard or to circumvent normal democratic processes in order to be heard.

A dysfunctional coalition government held ransom by extremists can be resolved by seeking new partners as the landscape and motivation changes or it can be addressed with an election, the more dysfunctional the sooner the election. There's a feedback loop there pushing back from the fringes.

In practice it tends to be, where parties don't share ideologies the one thing they have in common is the reality they face. Yes, change in that balanced scenario can be slow but arguably it should be and where it is too slow to keep pace with events or in the wrong direction the solution is an election.

jk

If the accepted reason for the likes of UKIP/BNP etc becoming popular is because their voters/supporters are somehow not getting 'heard' (I'll conveniently put aside that some of their voters might just hold nasty opinions), is it not just as likely that the potentially disenfranchised voters might become less extreme?

It's populist because they're playing to voters who see frequent international flying as like having lots of holidays rather than an unpleasant side effect of doing business globally.

The first thing I'd do as a small business if they f*cked up the cost of my business travel is change planes in Schipol rather than Heathrow and buy the ticket outside the UK.  Schipol is a nicer airport anyway.  If they want to stop people evading it that they'd need to start hooking databases together in a fairly spooky manner to track every UK resident's travel.

If I was a large international company and saw I was paying a bunch of tax on my frequent flyers I'd think about basing the ones that did the most international travel outside the UK.  

You mean like Swinson and the other MPs   

Which is why I pointed out the need some international agreement. Or even within the EU with tax on inbound flights from elsewhere. There are any number of possibilities but if the answer is always "no", we are stuffed., 

To be fair though, I'm not sure that there's any real equivalence between the shortcomings of FPTP and the post-referendum clusterf***. I do think constitutional matter should be put to a referendum.

But what we're seeing now is the consequence of a government that supports the status quo calling a referendum to settle an internal party matter, not for any great societal need, parliament failing in its duty to give the result legal status and apply a supermajority threshold, inadequate time for a proper public discourse, a leave side deliberately choosing not to produce a coherent plan or even a framework, a campaign period dominated by headline grabbing lies and hysteria, campaigns which broke electoral law and used sinister methods to target voters and a victory by  a narrow margin which has already been overhauled by natural population change. Plus a general failure by our media and journalists to properly hold politicians to account.

To be fair to them alot use the train.

The way to control air travel emissions is at the global or EU level with some kind of tax on aviation fuel. 

Dicking about with country level taxes which need new systems to collect and enforce them is silly.

Whereas cooperating internationally to fix and enforce taxes on fuel is simply not going to happen. Keep plugging away at it by all means but until it does we need to look at alternatives.

jk

That still requires an international approach and also fails to discriminate between occasional flyers and those who are profligate - there is no progressive aspect to it.  Not necessarily a show stopper but blunt.

Thinking "aloud" how about abandoning VAT and simply taxing VAT instead with similar  exemptions.

But they won’t be elected.

And chanting ‘non binding’ won’t change anything, the Lib Dems won’t be able to put the genie back in the bottle.

True, but that wasn't your point!

My claim was that the policy is logical and practical for a pro-remain party, which it is. You're right, the genie cannot be put back in the bottle. The country is permaf*cked. Brilliant.

No they won't be elected and the no genie won't go neatly back into the bottle, but that's a rather different story from legal challenges to uphold the referendum result.

I think you'd be pushing at an open door at the EU level.  Yes, it would take a while but once you get it done it makes a 450 million person market difference and the EU starts asking for similar rules from other countries in trade negotiations to get a level playing field.

I think Coel paints it rather black and white. If I remember correctly from his previous posts, he would prefer the school system to be totally devoid of religion except as taught as a subject like history.

Personally, I don't have a problem with religious schools being state funded and run on a religious ethos as long as...

1) There's a significant (>some threshold population or % of population) local community of that religion that demonstrably (hmm - would this need a vote?) wants a religious state school.

2) The entry policy is not allowed to discriminate against those not "of" the religion - but conversely, those parents/pupils must be ok attending a school with a religious ethos that is not their own.

3) The offerings within the school are not allowed to discriminate against those not "of" the religion.

4) The curriculum offered is not distorted by removal of core subjects; rather enhanced by addition of specialist religious subjects.

In other words allow communities that want them to establish religious schools but if they're going to be state funded then they have to maintain certain educational criteria/standards and avoid all discrimination.

However that's not what we've currently got. Sorry for the bit of thread hi-jack

Sorry, I was being pedantic really. The Lib Dem manifesto is Stop Brexit. A second referendum isn’t the same as Stop Brexit.

I don't even have a lib dem candidate to vote for, they have decided not to put one up in my constituency. 

Not every adult. Only £3k for me for example and I’d have to wait 10 years for that. I’m probably not the target, but what looks like a good policy, doesn’t feel quite so great in reality.

That -- a variety of schools for those of different religious background -- might work in central London, with good public transport, but is impractical for most of the country.

For reasons of: (1) climate change, (2) traffic congestion, and (3) kids' health, all kids should be walking or cycling to their neighbourhood school.  Which means that those schools need to be inclusive.

I'm also highly dubious about the wisdom of segregating kids by their parents' religion. 

From The Times this week:

"More than a third of Catholic schoolboys in Scotland have sectarian views, according to a study thought to be one of the first to look at the views of students at some of Scotland’s 357 Catholic secondary schools.

"The study considered anonymous questionnaires taken by almost 800 pupils aged 13 to 15. [...]

"It concluded that “although only 6 per cent of Catholic pupils took the extreme view that they would not like to live next door to Protestants, fewer than one third of Catholic pupils affirm their positive experience of Protestants”. It found also that only 31 per cent thought a lot of good was done in the world by Protestants.

"The report added that sectarian views persisted in “37 per cent of Catholic pupils who do not feel that they have friends who are Protestants” and 43 per cent would not be happy if a close relative married someone from another denomination."

And, of course, in the case of the Muslim religion, religious segregation would be de facto racial segregation.  Is that a good thing?  

Legal challenge to the sovereignty of Parliament. That would be ironic, but extremely unlikely.

I googled it, and this came up;

"A tie in elections happen very rarely, but it did last night in one of the seats on Northumberland County Council.

After two recounts, the South Blyth ward could not be split so the candidates had to draw straws to find a winner.

When a tie occurs the returning officer will decide how to choose a winner, which could include tossing a coin or pulling a name out of a hat.

05 May 2017"

Not for an MP I'll grant you, but if May 2017 isn't recent enough then what is.

All fair enough but presumably you wouldn't object to a contract which stipulated you were paid for a minimum of a certain number of hours per week or per month?

I'm not sure what the alternative is that is effective in stopping employers abusing the flexibility of zero hours contracts.

If you look at the majority your current MP has, and then look at the number of people on the voting register that didn't vote, you'll almost certainly find that if the "don't knows" and "couldn't be bothered" actually voted (and against the person they're complaining about), then virtually every MP would be vulnerable.

The manifesto looks sympathetic.....if only the party promoting it could be trusted. Jo Swinson smiles and blithely nods when asked if she would press the nuclear button and then positions her party as Tory enablers once again..... with an eye on Johnson trying to form a minority government. I hope and trust that the voters of East Dunbartonshire come out in numbers for Amy Callaghan.

Yes but it's too late for that, we're all but out of the EU.

jk

As you've taken yourself effectively, if not actually, off the electoral register, none of them are interested in your point of view. To quote the song "I'd like to help you son, but you're too young to vote".

The only way to get them interested in your point of view (on any subject) is to vote them out if they don't do what you want.

Retain Trident but no longer have a sub permanently at sea. That does concern me as it undermines the whole concept of deterrent because the very fact that there is a nuclear armed sub ready to retaliate out there SOMEWHERE, but no definite position is a powerful  deterrent. But by keeping the whole fleet in dock means that they just become a prime target to be destroyed in a preemptive strike long before they can deploy. It's almost as crazy as Corbyn's plan to retain them without nuclear warheads on board.

If Britain is to go down that road (which I don't agree with) you might as well scrap them completely, save lots of money and trust to luck.

I would object as it would get in the way of my other work. Some months I don't take any work from them.

Banning exclusivity clauses. Insisting that if an employee has worked a reasonably consistent number of hours per week/ month for X number of weeks/ months then they have to be offered the option of a proper contract (just offered though, some still want the flexibility). Clauses stating that a shift has to be paid if employer cancels it within 24 hours of shift being due to start.

Plenty of things can be put in place to protect employees without taking away the option of zero hours for those that want it.

I liked them a lot as a student too, they allowed me to work when term was reasonably quiet but not work in exam periods. I can also imagine parents with small children finding them conviennent, allowing them to take work during school time etc but not in holidays or those caring for elderly relatives can take work when suits around caring responsibilities and not on days when there are appointments etc to attend. 

There just needs to be some protection from exploitation.

Exclusivity clauses are banned at the moment, have been since about 2015 from my recollection.

The cancellation of the shift payment is a reasonable idea. But then its not a zero hours contract and sometimes you neeed to recognise that flexibility works both ways.

Agreed that plenty of things can be put in place, as there will always be a section of the work force where this type of arrangement works.

In the situation where a majority government cannot be formed, what would you have them do?

Genuine question - what is a pragmatic route out of that situation? Would it be better if she had no backup plan beyond the unlikely prospect of a Lib Dem majority?

Somebody should point out to the good voters of Milngavie how f*cked they would be if there was a pre-emptive strike on the subs at Holy Loch.   You'd have thought that Ms Swinson as their MP would have considered this.

Sorry to be the stick in the mud, but 80% renewables is not possible with current technology:

Renewable generation – solar, wind and tidal – is, by definition, non-synchronous and it is technically impossible to operate our electricity transmission system solely on non-synchronous generation. There is a real danger of system instability and consequential widespread blackouts once non-synchronous generation exceeds around 30 per cent of total generation at any one time.

The National Grid report on the recent major outage makes numerous references to the lack of inertia in the system. This resulted from insufficient large synchronous generators (nuclear, coal, gas) being connected.

Given the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the only option is to increase significantly nuclear build rapidly, and that can't be done in the 10yr horizon

Assuming its position truly is unknown, that technology hasn't undermined that assumption. It's easy to assume the very very difficult is impossible but history suggests we'd be wise not to if sufficient resources have been thrown at the problem.

It's hardly trusting to luck, most of the rest of the world finds other ways to achieve security and thrive without doomsday weapons.

jk

This is what the Lib Dem manifesto says on this topic:

Modernise employment rights to make them fit for the age of the ‘gig economy’, including by:

- Establishing a new ‘dependent contractor’ employment status in between employment and self-employment, with entitlements to basic rights such asminimum earnings levels, sick pay and holiday entitlement.
- Reviewing the tax and National Insurance status of employees, dependent contractors and freelancers to ensure fair and comparable treatment.
- Setting a 20 per cent higher minimum wage for people on zero-hour contracts at times of normal demand to compensate them for the uncertainty of fluctuating hours of work.

- Giving a right to request a fixed-hours contract after 12 months for ‘zero hours’ and agency workers, not to be unreasonably refused.
- Reviewing rules concerning pensions so that those in the gig economy don’t lose out, and portability between roles is protected.

-Shifting the burden of proof in employment tribunals regarding employment status from individual to employer.
- Strengthen the ability of unions to represent workers effectively in the modern economy, including a right of access to workplaces.

It also says they would:

Change the law so that flexible working is open to all from day one in the job, with employers required to advertise jobs accordingly, unless there are significant business reasons why that is not possible.

This would presumably enable some people who currently need zero hours contracts to have normal (but newly flexible) roles instead.

Heavy rotating machinery isn't the only way to maintain synchronicity, it is merely the established traditional way which it has been easy to rely upon while those machines still exist.

We've probably waited too long to build the next generation nuclear plants, for them to form a big part of the solution to the coming emissions crunch. Our targets (whatever we set) will either be missed (seems likely if they're meaningfully ambitious) or we'll be paying more, leaning very heavily on cleverly managed renewables with standby gas turbines.

jk

I don't believe nuclear weapons are in any short supply at present. In a war with a nation prepared to use them anyone living near a significant military facility is going to be having a very bad day anyway. Having some ambiguity as to whether the subs are at home is going to win you a short slide down the priority list, not a complete reprieve.

Fair point

That's an assumption that hasn't been tested

We have exceeded 30% by renewable generation on multiple occasions this year, up to 50% at times. 

Fair enough, you got me there. I'm not sure how that would pan out to be honest. My preference would still be for a referendum, but I get the impression that the PV movement would largely evaporate. For sure it would anger a lot of people and be divisive.

I'm guessing the Lib Dems are fairly certain this promise won't be put to the test. (Although perhaps Cameron thought that about the original referendum back in 2015!)

I disagree but then we always disagree about this

jk

By two methods. 

A. Joining nato where all nations agree to protect each other. So a non nuclear nation has the backing of a nuclear one.

B. Grovelling or allowing a nuclear nation to establish ports and military bases on your land. (Russia). 

I have now read through all 100 pages of the manifesto. Dull, since you ask. However, I have to say there is a lot in there to like and the only thing I could find that I actively disliked was a commitment to continue HS2, the value of which I remain unconvinced about.

Here's a few policies I don't think have gotten wider press:

• Cap donations to political parties
• Votes to 16 year olds in referenda and elections
• Proportional representation with STV
• Reform the house of lords
• Parliament to approve prorogation, not the queen
• Legal recognition of humanist marriage
• Halt facial recognition surveillance
• Halt bulk data collection of communications/internet records
• End rough sleeping
• Open rail franchise bidding up to public sector companies and local authorities
• Reduce tax on EVs
• Protect the independence of the BBC
• Flexible working by default
• Teach logic and verbal reasoning in schools
• Program to roll out high speed broadband across the UK, esp. rural areas

New Zealand.

Don't make me work through the whole list in class C: Diplomacy, economics and conventional forces, or class D: selling out to China for that matter.

jk

NZ has a few mutual agrrrements such as being part of 5 eyes, a some what privileged position. 

Quite but that is an intelligence sharing partnership and it wasn't your initial claim. NZ isn't in NATO, nor does it host the Russian fleet.

Chile.

jk

I don't believe there would be any ambiguity about whether the subs were at home to any nation state that wanted to know.  They are big things and its one naval base.  They could deploy some small cameras or underwater devices or have a spy that worked on the base.

They might well also calculate that a strike against a naval base in a relatively unpopulated area wouldn't bring nuclear retaliation from the UK's allies.

If you wan't to talk about LibDem policies then the premise has to be that we stay in the EU.  If they are in government we will be in the EU, if they aren't in government then their manifesto policies are irrelevant.

presumably also down to 0% at times. That is exactly the problem. Electricity generated at times that do not match demand is essentially worthless.

It's never quite to 0% in the UK but for stable winter nights it'll be very low, we're heavily dependant on offshore wind.

There is much we can do to improve matters. Using only what we strictly need, extending our grids to escape local weather systems and improving generation and consumption forecasts to plan further ahead, exploiting more continuously available generating capacity like geothermal, tidal and hydro, increasing our grid-scale storage capacity, making our distributed storage much smarter and more interconnected, making low and flexible duty-cycle consumers much smarter and making all that pay for those impacted and invested.

However even without storage and renewable diversity it is not worthless. At present it imperfectly displaces CO2 emitting stations when renewable power is available reducing our emissions as considered over a meaningful time frame rather than day by day. The primary downside to this is the cost of building and operating increasingly redundant fossil fuel stations but then we're getting into weighing what we pay for our electricity against the sustainability of our ecosystem and civilisation.

jk

Lowest this year is 10% (on a by day basis) and last month was 9.4% (on a by hour basis) but that is missing my point. The poster stated:

We were at over 30% renewable generation quite a lot last year, amnd this year, and I've not seen any of these widespread blackouts.

That is not to say a 100% renewable energy supply is a easy fix, generation time, demand time and storage need considering, but it should something we aim to get as close to possible to.

Labour's Shadow Education Secretary: https://twitter.com/AngelaRayner/status/1196856260186066944

"Remember them empty promises the Tories gave on opening new faith schools? I’ve never put our faith schools at risk and never will. They play a very important role as part of the NES."

So that's Labour off the list of parties that I might vote for. 

Interestingly, counting the replies to the Tweet, I make it that there are 38 replies against faith schools and only one supportive. 

You weren't going to vote Labour anyway, though, were you?

While I pretty much agree with you on faith schools, I think all the major parties have significant religious lobbies inside them and they're all afraid to upset them and that part of their vote.

Even if it's the most important issue to you, I can't see how you can use it as a decider unless there's a party that actually does support sorting it.

I'm not sure, but I think the Green party might come closest in England:

https://policy.greenparty.org.uk/ed.html

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/feb/10/green-party-education-pol...

(both of these are fairly old bits of writing)

I suspect that they'll get softer on it as they become more mainstream, for the same reasons as the bigger parties.

I must admit, it's pretty unlikely so long as Corbyn and McDonnell are in charge.

They're ruled out owing to opposition to GM foods (nuts from an ecological point of view) and to nuclear power (nuts from an ecological point of view) and various other stuff such as their instinctive aversion to market economies.

Fair enough. You're probably ruling everyone out, then, due to your "red lines".

I take the view that there will probably never be a party that supports everything I care strongly about, so I support the best fit, and occasionaly try to make a small difference arguing against the bits I don't like. (Although it's almost impossible for one person, or even a few people, to make much difference without an enormous investment of time and effort, of course.)