On Wednesday I took our petition to 10 Downing Street, to show Theresa May how we feel about the cuts to our Hospital. The more than 6,000 signatures(931 from High Peak) have been handed to the Government for consideration before the Autumn Statement this week.
Two weeks to go in the Richmond Park Parliamentary by-election, but four council by-elections around the country this week. .
The noises from Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell are increasingly pro-Brexit. The Liberal Democrats, by contrast, are taking a hard line over what any legislation authorising the Article 50 process must say - including giving the British people a vote on the outcome of Brexit negotiations. Which makes this new poll from YouGov particularly interesting
This week is the 50th anniversary of the ground-breaking BBC film Cathy Come Home, the gripping and controversial 1966 film about poverty and homelessness. It tells the story of Cathy and Reg, a couple with three young children who find their life spiralling into poverty when Reg loses his job. Cathy is left homeless and her children are taken away.
On Wednesday the Investigatory Powers Bill overcame its final Parliamentary hurdle before becoming law. In the end the issue that held it up for a while was press regulation, not the powers of the state to intrude into our privacy. In line with party policy, agreed at Lib Dem conference, we tabled dozens of amendments on significant issues that went to the very heart of the bill - while trivial Labour and Government amendments simply tinkered around the edges. Despite the Government's best efforts to close down the debate, we fought hard and achieved close and careful line-by-line scrutiny of the bill in the House of Lords - something we were not given the opportunity to do in the Commons.
When Liberal International was founded in Oxford nearly 70 years ago it was very much a European affair. With the noble exception of Canada, Liberal parties and values were largely confined to northern Europe, but since then the picture has changed dramatically. As we in Britain lick our wounds from the double whammy of the Brexit vote and the triumph of Donald Trump in the United States let us take comfort from the fact that the Liberal family is growing worldwide. This was dramatically illustrated by the Liberal International (LI) Executive in Marrakesh, at which five new African parties - from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Madagascar, Senegal and Somalia - were welcomed into membership last weekend, which means that LI now has almost 50 member parties from Africa alone. The Marrakesh gathering was timed to coincide with COP22, the latest in a series of global conferences following up on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. So it was hardly surprising that environmental issues figured prominently in LI's d
The UK needs to strengthen both our Armed Forces and our soft power.
Today is Holocaust Memorial Day.
The UK must once again stand tall, leading on the world stage and working closely with those who share our interests – including, above all, our partners in Europe.
