Conservative MP Philip Davies has started taking a surprising interest in the Liberal Democrats' commitment to an equal parliament, and our internal selection procedures.
Perhaps he has decided to turn his back on his sexist views, or perhaps he has a different motive.
Read Philip Davies' letter to Ed Davey, and Ed's reply:
The second-biggest trade union in the UK, Unite, has joined other unions such as ASLEF, TSSA, the MU, and the FBU in expressing support for electoral reform. They voted "to adopt a policy of opposing First Past the Post and supporting moves to explore, select and introduce a new voting system for the UK".
The Vagrancy Bill is a blunt outdated instrument that makes criminals of rough sleepers. It hurts the people most in need in our society.
Liberal Democrats have been fighting to scrap it for years. And now the Prime Minister has been dragged kicking and screaming to a point where even he admits it needs to go.
In light of the horrifying news of the murder of Conservative MP, David Amess, the Liberal Democrats have suspended campaigning over the weekend in line with other political parties.
This means that the party will not proactively campaign via the channels we control (social media / press / email) and normal activity will resume after the weekend.
In collaboration with the Liberal Democrat European Group, the Federal Policy Committee are organising regional events giving members a chance to shape our policy on Europe. We want to hear your thoughts on what our priority areas should be, what solutions you might have to problems raised and how we can continue to promote a close relationship with Europe.
The autumn party conferences traditionally mark the start of the new political season. They are a time to reflect on the past year and set out plans to succeed in the coming year.
Both politics and coronavirus have made it a tough time since the last round of conferences. But we can look forward to this new political season with confidence that if we continue to raise our game, we can prosper. We've seen signs of that already, including with Sarah Green's fantastic win in Chesham and Amersham and also with the latest net favourability leadership polling from Savanta ComRes:
The Federal Conference Committee recently met to discuss the Conference format for 2022.
We considered a number of options for next year's conferences and took the difficult decision to hold Spring Conference as an online conference and only returning to an in-person event for Autumn Conference. The dates of Spring Conference will be 11-13 March 2022 and we will announce the dates and venue for Autumn Conference in due course.
This Autumn, we say goodbye to Isabelle Parasram, our Vice President responsible for working with ethnic minority communities.
Isabelle has been a tremendous advocate, leader and example in the Party and she will be greatly missed. We wish her all the best in her new role as Chief Executive of Social Value UK, which has led to her making the difficult decision to step back from the demands of the Vice Presidential role.
The Federal Communications and Elections Committee met this week to discuss some key challenges and opportunities ahead for the Pary.
Campaign innovation
The Campaign Innovation Fund team, supported by ALDC and others, presented to us on the results of a set of experiments conducted to test what does, and doesn't, help us win campaigns.
