Category: Economy

Changing Political Landscapes

You can tell the type of person I am. I occasionally stop for a morning coffee in Gail’s[1]. Overall, I favour cafe Nero. Better coffee. An Italian vibe. That said, the expanding up-market bakery has a pleasant ambience. They are taking over and restoring the more regal old bank buildings of the High Street. Britain’s national banks have long since moved out.

In the last 9-months, I’ve moved from a town that had both, to a town that until recently had only one. It wasn’t my influence, but a Gail’s has opened a new shop in recent weeks. Post election, I might add. I’ve moved from a Conservative town to one that is no longer a Conservative town.

Anyway, there I was doing a bit of lunchtime shopping in Waitrose. It has a small cafe in one corner of the supermarket. Stopped for a ham, egg and chips and a flat white coffee. On a rack on the wall is a display of daily newspapers. I’m pleased to say that there’s a weekly local newspaper there too.

The Times and The Daily Mail are there for the delight of their customers. Two national newspapers that I am not going to spend my hard-earned cash on unless I’m desperate for something to read. Both tabloids aimed at a broadly conservative readership. 

The Mail is serialising the writings of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. No doubt he’s getting an astonishing amount of money for his latest scribblings. Journalism was his calling.

To sell a book about political life the book certainly mustn’t be boring. Charity shops are littered with shelves of books from long forgotten personalities. My observation is that Johnson has taken aim at an audience that still thinks of him as a worthy premier.

I couldn’t resist. Had to speed read the parts that spilled the beans. The parts that dug the dirt. The revelations. Except that’s not what I read in speech bubble paragraphs. First off, I was remined of The Beano[2]. The world’s longest-running comic for children. Johnson’s language assumed my reading age to be about 12-years old. A jolly wizard wheeze ticking-off those fancy pants or misery guts who haunted his days in power. Apart from saving the known universe his anecdotes were mostly to the detriment of the people mentioned. One exception being his dad.

In a moment of reflection, it’s astonishing that Johnson once led this great country. He led London too. What on earth were we thinking? How did it happen? One or two more serious books have gone down that road. I was recommended to read “Johnson at 10 by Anthony Seldon[3].” By the way, you can tell the type of person I am. Earlier in the year, that book suggestion came from the person standing next to me, wating to go into the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall.

[1] https://gails.com/

[2] https://shop.beano.com/

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/24/johnson-at-10-by-anthony-seldon-and-raymond-newell-review-the-great-pretender

Why the UK Should Rejoin

Fine, I’m happy to admit that my march, with thousands of others, through the streets of London on Saturday was not everyone’s cup of tea. There are a lot of people who support the idea of a return to European Union (EU) membership but are reluctant to raise the issue just now.

Often cited is the wave of right-wing politicians who are gaining ground in Europe’s larger countries. It’s as if they are going through their own Brexit like political moment but without anyone of any consequence advocating throwing away their EU membership.

Maybe the UK is ahead in this respect. We’ve been through the confusion and turbulence of the political right-wing eccentrics moment in the sun. They were never mainstream. However, they did hold the reins of power for some disastrous years. Thank God they are now behind us.

I have marched year-after-year because it’s the right thing to do. Tens of thousands from all over the UK have done the same as me. Millions if the numbers added-up from 2016 onward. Our future can be based on cooperation and mutual interests. Ideologically driven conflict and disruption have brought nothing but a lose – lose outcome.

So, what are the arguments for the rejoin movement? It’s all very well to shout at the thing we don’t like. Now, is the time to make the sound solid arguments for the thing we favour.

Let’s take trade for a start. The last UK Government wallowed in gushes of self-praise every time they signed an agreement with any country that was not European. Conservative Members of Parliament wanted to tower over the world like imperial overseers. It was an illusion.

Most of the so called “new” deals that were signed were simply a rollover that meant no change. In fact, more was given away than was gained. All in a desperate attempt to show progress. British farming was effectively shafted by Ministers.

One of the most touted possible “streets paved with gold[1]” was the prospect of a super new trade deal with the United States (US). Under President Trump, the prospect of an advantageous UK-US trade deal was an illusion.

Ironically, a claimed success was the joining of a regional trade block. I know it’s crazy that leaving a gigantic trade block on the UK’s doorstep was followed by joining one covering the Pacific. Yes, the other side of the world. Not only that but the projected gains are minuscule.

EU membership offers, as it did before, access to enormous trade benefits by comparison with what has been achieved since 2016. The numbers speak for themselves.

If the new Labour Government continues with a form of the fibs told during the “Get Brexit Done” phase, then trouble lies ahead. Next door, the UK has the world’s largest trading block. The value to the British economy of Single Market membership exceeds a mishmash of remote and small deals. There’s a positive way forward and it’s staring us in the face.

POST: It’s worth noting that the 1960 European Free Trade Association (EFTA ) was created, to promote free trade and economic integration included: Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

[1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/streets-are-paved-with-gold

National Rejoin March: Unity for a European Future

The European Movement[1] has been around for 75-years. Yesterday, I was surrounded by a good number of their membership. That, and many Liberal Democrats. People, young and old, from communities up and down Britain. There were lots of people from the creative industries, so badly hit by Brexit. In fact, there were people of every political background marching through the streets of central London.

Everybody had gathered in central London with the aim of reversing the tragedy that is Brexit. I say “is” and not “was” because the disaster continues to have marked repercussions on everyday life. Reclaiming the freedoms that we once had has brought people together in large numbers.

On Saturday, pro-European campaigners made their way from Park Lane to Parliament Square for the third annual National Rejoin March (NRM)[2]. The weather smiled on the gathering. It couldn’t have been better in the light of torrential rain and the endless storms of past days. The sunshine and blue skies warmed my sprit.

The occasional chant of “Boll*cks to Brexit” has been replaced by Reset, Repair, Rejoin. As is the tradition of these events, posters ranged from the more obvious slogans, like #BinBrexit to the imaginative and sometimes bizarre. The group dressed in eye catching elephant costumes had a point to make. The elephant in the room being the protesters theme.

Standing next to me, one young lad asked his mate why he had decided to be on this rejoin march. I thought his response most was appt: “Because I want to be on the right side of history”. To me that just about sums it up. Brexit is an aberration. Eventually, after a great deal of to-and-fro the strong likelihood is that the UK will rejoin the European Union (EU), or its successor. Everything we know points in that direction. It may take a decade. It may take more.

The Labour Party won the 4th July UK General Election, and while it pledged not to reopen the main parts of Britain’s deal to leave the EU, does claim to want a significant reset. So far, the indications are that this policy line is typical political rhetoric, and little more. But it must be said that this is the early days of a new British government. If their claim to want growth in the economy to fuel spending on public services is honest, they would be mighty foolish to discount rejoining the European Single Market.

Thousands gathered in London. This will go on year after year. The diminishing number of objectors, who chant from the sidelines, remind me of the “Dead Parrot Sketch”[3]. For all intents and purposes all the arguments for Brexit have perished, much like the poor parrot. Even when that’s an obvious fact there are still those few people who will defend it to the hilt. As we walked down St James’s Street a well dressed bloke in a side street seemed most agitated. Shouted abuses and ran off. I looked around. We all shrugged our shoulders. I certainly thought – what a sad man.

I’m sure Britain can reclaim its place in Europe. It will take resolve and continuous effort but, as has been pointed out, this campaign is on the right side of history.

[1] www.europeanmovement.co.uk

[2] https://uk.news.yahoo.com/protesters-call-uk-rejoin-european-154046221.html?

[3] https://youtu.be/vZw35VUBdzo

Navigating the Future

The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades. It’s a 1986 song title but a wonderful catchphrase. Am I going to be optimistic enough to use it on Monday 22nd July? Well, why not? Suddenly, the world looks different.

A dull and sullen presidential race in the US has flipped overnight. We’ve shed the heavy load of incompetence of the last UK government. And even France avoided a catastrophe, in the political sense. Maybe times are getting better. It’s been hard to believe the world of the 21st Century was one that was going to get better and better. With the climate crisis, pandemic, wars and narcissistic political mad people around we can be forgiven for thinking that all is not well.

As a sideline, watching the video of Timbuk 3[1] doing the song and it’s a great reminder of the leaps technology has made in four decades. Cool computer graphics of the 1980s now look ghastly. Lumpy and blocky primary colours bouncing around a cathode ray tube. A 5-year-old with cardboard cutouts could have matched the graphics.

Now, maybe some of the right-wing outliers of the political landscape will turn out to be one-hit wonders. Manufactured to rail with grievances and offering no workable solutions. Dug into a depressing victim culture. If there are cycles in politics, wouldn’t it be fantastic if we were starting an upswing in optimism. Sadly, so far the public attitudes of the first part of the 21st Century have been a chorus of gloom and doom.

The pop song is not simple one. I read it that there’s a healthy degree of irony in its words. A love of nuclear science at a time when the cold war was still raging around us may have been poking fun at optimism as much as optimism itself. Anyway, thank you P. Macdonald, wherever you are.

Square eyes looking through square glasses is an image, perhaps a warning, that one day we’d all be glued to handheld portable rectangular screens that would come to dominate our lives. Now, that prediction would have required a lot of imagination in 1986.

The future is bright. I’ll go with the contention that progressively we are turning a corner. Ok, fine it’s a more dangerous world than it ever has been but, in the spirt of the song, don’t let that get you down. We have it within our capacity to navigate through the dangers that are out there.

It would be dumbest to go with the notion that every problem has a simple fix. That at the wave of a hand wars would end. That they wouldn’t have even started if some demigod was in power. There are no modern day emperors with magical powers and a mountain of cost free answers.

A liberal future is one where positive change is possible, but we are not blind to the difficulties of making it happen. The future is bright, or it can be.

[1] https://youtu.be/nsRKleS-Ihk?list=RDEM3bP5Qf7ThmHO83SwcyDhbw

The River’s Arms

It’s now called the River’s Arms Close. A scattering of relatively new houses. That’s all that remains of a rough working public house that I knew well in my youth. Not indoors. In the bars. I never visited more than the paved courtyard outside the pub. Afterall, I am talking about me at the age of 12 or 13ish. Until now, looking it up, I’d remembered the pub as being called The Railway.

This pub was just across the road from the entrance to what was then Sturminster Newton cattle market[1]. A huge agricultural market. It was on Station Road. Even then, the railway station and its steam trains had long gone. They must have gone in 1965/66. Then a political axe fell on rural railway lines. On a Monday, the town was a busy place. That was market day.

Scruffiness was a badge of honour. Galvanised steel sheeted buildings and tatty block-built sheds were the order of the day. The feast for the eye was not the buildings, more the people. The noise was overwhelming. Smells were on the rich side too.

This comes to mind because I moved a large and heavy plastic planter containing a healthy blackcurrant bush. Green leaves and wood. My crop of blackcurrants had been eaten by birds earlier in the year. This week’s plan was to find a suitable spot in the garden to transplant the bush ready for next year.

Here’s the connection. It’s to do with fruits. Local produce. In the 1960s, to earn money of our own, my brothers and I would go blackberry picking. There were times when Somerset hedgerows were teaming with mases of blackberries. They still are in a lot of places. We’d fill to the brim used plastic containers. Recycling ice-cream containers. Trying not to squish the delicate fruit.

On market day the courtyard outside the pub would become an auction ground. People would bring local produce and miscellaneous junk in the hope of getting a fair price. Everything would be spread out over the floor outside. Fruit, veg, eggs and strange ironwork and old tools. Around lunchtime a sale would take place. Informal and unpredictable. A huddle of farmers, townsfolk and on watchers. Nevertheless, all the small items were carefully booked in and booked out. For our containers of blackberries, or later in the year field mushrooms, we’d get just less than a pound, if we were lucky. That was in “new money.”

It’s July, so we are not into that season yet. It’s creeping up on us. Fruit trees are starting to look as if they are going to produce a good crop. Blackberries are slowly forming. A time of fruitfulness is coming. That season of harvest is just over the horizon.

Exposure to markets, and their volatility, is as much a life lesson as the benefits of organic produce. In that small Dorset country town, the ebb and flow of market day were as integral to life as the water that flowed in the river. Today, much of that rhythm is history. A new rhythm is running. We go from coffee shop to posh bakery to the purveyors of expensive imports.

Our dependency on national supermarkets and large-scale logistics is mainstream. The heavy lorries that carry food are not full of local produce going to a local market. They come from remote fulfilment centres on main trunk roads. They dwarf the road traffic of the past.

It’s silly to think that we can step back. Times were rougher and cruder but there’s merit in giving thought to the better bits. Today, there’s little incentive for a boy with a recycled container full of fresh blackberries.

[1] https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/local-news/sturminster-newtons-bell-toll-today-148980

Solar farms

New Government signs off solar farms. Not everyone happy.

It would be good if we could all agree that the UK needs to recognise the importance of locally produced food and drink. There’re large environmental gains to be made by reducing the distance between production and consumption. Thousands of heavy trucks thunder up and down the inadequate road infrastructure in the UK. Colossal amounts of food waste get thrown away from supermarkets. Questionable preservatives enable supply chains to grow longer and longer. There’s are bad trends.

On a related subject, I do have a problem with proposals for large solar arrays that will take out productive farmland. However, that is by no means an objection to large solar arrays, or onshore wind farms for that matter.

It’s not as if we have always been so precious about what we do with our glorious countryside. One observation I’d make is that there has been a huge increase in the urbanisation of the countryside in my lifetime. Areas that were either wild or exclusively used for agriculture are now pony paddocks, car parks, golf courses, housing estates, out-of-town shopping warehouse, fulfillment centres[1], and bypasses. In 50-years, there’s little that remains untouched.

I’d sing “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot” if I could. We really do need to think carefully about what we industrialise and what we preserve and protect.

For me large solar arrays are in the same category as acres of poly tunnels. Both serve a fundamental purpose, and both are structure that can be relatively easily removed. Keeping the lights on and eating fresh food are both part of society’s basic needs.

So, I’m not going to raise an eyebrow at new Minister Ed Miliband approving 3 large solar arrays[2]:No shock but no blank cheque either. No jumping on a political bandwagon to condemn the immediate decision.  

It’s likely the decision was sitting on the former Conservative Minister’s desk. Is this a case of difficult decisions deliberately delayed because of an election? We may never know. It would be a bit disingenuous for such politicians to complain now. Wouldn’t it?

Let’s get it right. Failure to decarbonise our national energy system is a contribution to global warming we can’t afford to make. Long-term that global warming will impact food production.

In years to come it will be interesting to see what research flags up with respect to solar farms and biodiversity in an area. There’s some chance that the results will not be entirely negative. There’s all that sheltered and undisturbed soil under the array structures. A habitat for wildlife.

Choosing between what might seem as the lesser of two evils is often the situation a politician finds themselves in. Afterall, that’s the role they must play in a democracy. The outcome may not be popular in the short-term, but a balance must be struck.

Maybe we should reverse some of the urbanisation of the countryside. Return some little used roads to nature. Demolish unused industrial units. Put back the hedges that have been lost. Rewild one or two golf courses. It’s something to consider when building new infrastructure.

[1] Fulfillment centres enables outsourcing, warehousing and shipping. This is for online businesses to have the physical space to store stuff.  

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4ng6036vgqo

Just Culture

My thought is that we’ve forgotten the discussion of more than a decade ago. There was a time when the thoughtful reflections on responsibility and accountability were much discussed.

Without focusing on specific examples, there are plenty to choose from, there’s the propensity of our institutions and politicians to reach for “blame” as a first response. When situations go bad the instinctive inclination to hunt out someone to blame. This is an all too prevalent habit.

Naturally, in cases, there’s the strong need to identify who is accountable for bad decisions. Society does not like it when the powerful protect, cocoon themselves and grab for immunity. Certainly, some people and organisations are genuinely blameworthy. However, if we scrutinise and point the finger of blame, it doesn’t help if that finger is pointed at a person’s honest errors. There isn’t a human on this planet who hasn’t made an error.

The finger of blame is easily pointed. Judgment so often falls after an event. The time when more is known, and hindsight comes into play. This tips the balance. It’s so much easier to say: why on Earth did you do that? I would never have done that.

For people to come forward and be fairly heard in an open and fair inquiry or investigation they need to have the confidence that they are not stepping into a public blame-fest. Without trust between those on all sides of it’s less likely that the truth will come out.

“Just Culture” is a concept written into aviation legislation and followed by others. The overriding aim is to learn from mistakes. It’s the surest way of not repeating the same mistakes time and time again. It’s beneficial to have that long-term learning objective. Why suffer the pain of a bad event when the means to avoid it are known and understood?

Now, I’m going back 20-years. I remember being part of an international working group[1] called GAIN. The group compiled guidance about organisational culture. At the time, the group was considering the subject in the context of the air traffic profession. Guidance like the one referenced, emphasise that a Just Culture is not simply a no-blame culture. It’s not, and never has been a way of circumventing accountability.

Determining culpability can be complex. There’s often a test to consider the wilfulness of the participants in a bad event. In other words, did they carelessly, intentionally, maliciously or negligently make decisions that resulted in the bad event? In these cases, the “they” could be an individual or an organisation.

Gross negligence, wilful abuses and destructive acts should be addressed by the enforcement of laws. If we say the criminalisation of honest people involved in bad events has a negative impact. That is not to negate the need for enforcement. Regulators in all sorts of walks of life have a duty to apply enforcement where and when it’s appropriate. Maybe we ought to have applied that to the UK water industry.

My plea here is to first consider the nature of the events in question. Was there an element of genuine honest human error? Is the right balance being struck between the need to learn and the need to ensure accountability?

NOTE: Just Culture is defined in EU law as “A culture in which operational staff or others are not held accountable for actions, acts, omissions or decisions commensurate with their experience and training, but gross negligence, intentional violations and destructive actions are not tolerated” EC 376/2014 Art. 2 Para. 12.

[1] A Roadmap to a Just Culture https://flightsafety.org/files/just_culture.pdf

No Sprint

The last couple of days have seen a new UK Parliament take shape. Beaming smiles from an intake of rearing to go new Members of Parliament (MPs). There’s lashings of energy and enthusiasm. Every problem is to be looked at afresh. No problem is too big to tackle, even if some problems may take while to cure. Horizons stretch ahead full of oceans of possibilities.

Back in May 1993, I was a freshly elected young County Councillor. It was such a magic moment. One evening, at County Hall for the first time sitting in a room with 29 colleagues. For the first time the Council being No Overall Control (NOC). One room full of a mix of battle-hardened pros and fresh faces. A manifesto in hand and magic in the air.

Today, there are 72 Liberal Democrat MPs. Yes, 72 MPs. I can imagine, without looking at the press pictures what that may feel like. A wonderful feeling of hope, ambition and warmth. A little trepidation. Thoughts like: what will be my role in this epic journey? Those with small electoral majorities might be focused not only on their role in the team but how they will secure more than one term of office.

Politics is a precarious way of life. Any electoral success is certainly never to be taken for granted. This UK General Election has shown that in spades. Volatility amongst the voting population is probably higher than it has ever been. That impulsiveness sits in the background of the overall wish to throw out the mediocre incumbents.

At least for the honeymoon period, often characterised as the first 100 days, the new government and new effective opposition will be given a period of grace. It’s a time when everyone wishes the nation to succeed and prosper in the direction that is set.

A modern UK Prime Minister has a great deal of power in the first period of their office. On this occasion, those that lost, Conservatives will be struggling to rebuild their shattered party. Whether they bury Thatcherism or reincarnate it, they will be in turmoil for a considerable while. They may even strike up an extreme ideology and march off into the political wilderness.

Liberalism is in rude health. The 72 Liberal Democrat MPs will surely work with conviction and proudly hold their principles aloft.

It’s not the first time that I’ve referenced the Stoics. I am reminded that despite the joys of the moment and the races that have been won, the battle of ideas never stops or starts. There are peaks and troughs of optimism and pessimism. There are opportunities taken and lost. There are times of progressive advance and there’s inevitable push backs. He’s no longer with us, in fact if he was still around, he’d be nearly 100 years old. Labour MP Tony Benn was wrong on Europe but often wise about the UK Parliament. I agree with his view of Parliament in this respect, however flawed it may be: “Through talk, we tamed kings, restrained tyrants, averted revolution.” Long may that continue. There’s no finality in politics; there is always another step to take.

His maxim for MPs to operate on two levels makes a lot of sense. One is to be an agent of practical action and the other is to operate in the realm of ideas. Not so easy to do. Nevertheless, democracy is healthier if both delivery and values are never strangers.

Service

The subject of national service, and its reintroduction is part of a memorable Yes, Prime Minister. “He thinks it’s a vote winner[1]” and so, apparently does our current PM.

This sketch is a wonderful example of how someone can be hood-winked into saying “yes” to something regardless of circumstances, or the foolishness of the idea. It’s comedy genius. Sadly, it’s reality in this early stage of campaigning for this UK General Election.

Conservative PM Sunak’s knee-jerk proposal to reinstate national service falls apart like a toilet roll falling in a bath of cold water. Layer by layer the logic crumbles, with any scrutiny.

For one, how come £4 billion can be found at an instant for something previously ignored. Frankly, anything that resembled civic service has been consistently rundown over the last decade[2]. Not to mention the massive rundown in youth services over a couple of decades.

It might be wise to ask if the UK military want such a new system of national service. One that hosts around 30,000 young people a year. The answer so far is – absolutely “no”. At a time when our professional services are stretched, it seems ridiculous to ask them to take on the task of administering and running a scheme that is extremely unlikely to boost their combat readiness and overall effectiveness.

I’m old enough to have been told a long list of anecdotes from those people who had to do national services in the 1960s. I worked with many of them in the 1980s and 90s. The stories are often humorous, eccentric and riddled with tales of timewasting schemes that were invented to keep young men occupied and out of trouble. Well, out of big trouble.

National service doesn’t offer a life of adventure. More like peeling potatoes, picking fruit and driving scruffy delivery vans around. Although such schemes may benefit a very few, for the vast majority would be spinning wheels and filling time. Wating to put time served behind them before getting stuck into a career of their choice. For a few young people, who could already be on the path to a criminal career, giving them weapons training isn’t a good idea.

Mr Sunak is betraying his fickle nature. He’s a desperate politician inclined to grab at something shiny. Magpie like. Retro policies, perhaps picked-up watching classic TV series from the past, are not the way forward for a country keen to make a new start.

We will not see Mr Sunak running a flower stall outside Waterloo Station if he fails to secure re-election. The post of UK PM will be filed quickly. More likely to see him on a sunny beach in California soon. I wonder if he’s packed his suntan lotion.

POST 1: The last thing we need to do now is to take young people out of existing apprenticeship and training schemes. The demand for young engineers and technologists is high. It would be far more constructive to offer sponsorships and subsistence support to applying and existing students rather than vague one-year gimmicks.

POST 2: Even The Daily Mail is commenting on how this proposal was sprung on unsuspecting candidates and Ministers without warning. Maybe the lobbying of parents prepping their offspring for Oxbridge, and alike is echoing loudly. Clearly, no one thought through the real life implications of a mandatory national service scheme for all 18-year olds.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks

[2] https://schoolsweek.co.uk/national-citizen-service-cuts-ties-with-largest-provider/

Two Issues

It’s all to play for, as they say. The UK General Election starting pistol has been fired. Politicians are out of the gate. We are in for six weeks of intense competition for every place where the poll result isn’t a horribly foregone conclusion. Even in some of those places there’s a renewed sense that anything is possible. So, far gone is the public image of the Conservatives that Westminster constituencies, formerly thought to be a wilderness of opposition parties are now possibilities.

What are, yes, I know it’s not new to say so, the elephants in the room? The political parties seem set on what they want to talk about but it’s not a couple of remarkably big issues.

One is Brexit, and its overall impact and the other is Social Care. Two massive pressing issues that politicians are ducking and weaving to avoid. Discussions about the UK’s economy should not happen without discussing Brexit effects. On the other issue, the big truth is that the population of the UK is aging. Yet, we really don’t like talking about it.

One point of agreement is that we need the UK economy to do better. That’s a conditional on generating the funds needed to be able to repair the damage done over the last decade. The overall performance of the UK economy during the Conservative period in power has been undeniably poor. A big part of that poor performance comes from the disruption caused to the UK’s primary marketplace by Brexit. It has been a self-inflicted wound.

On Social Care the Conservatives made a succession of promises. If we look at their record on delivery, there’s nothing to show. Local government has been beaten up over the last decade. Report after report has shown ways forward for social care. Sadly, politicians in power have not been brave enough to push hard enough to implement recommendations that can ease the heavy burden placed on many families.

In my view, our best hope on these two issues is to back the Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives have demonstrated their inability to address these issues. Labour has been timid on both. Fearful that the tabloid newspapers will attack them at a critical moment.

There’s an excellent case for rebuilding the UK’s relationship with the European Union. Single Market membership wouldn’t happen overnight but surely, it’s the direction to head in. The free flow of trade, in a marketplace that is so large, and on our country’s, doorstep would boost the UK’s economy overnight.

For the sake of a few billion of public spending. Set in the context that annual government spending of a thousand billion, then priority action could be taken on Social Care. The difference this would make in helping those in extreme difficulty would be enormous.

I dare say MP Micheal Gove, who is standing down at this election, is right. It’s time for a younger generation to take up leadership roles and to sort out the mistakes that have been made over the last decade. Our liberal democracy needs to get back on track.