Remembering Valerie Silbiger

I was very sad to read that Valerie Silbiger has died. The news is on the blog written by Mark Pack, and his post quotes the former Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone:

I am so sorry and sad to hear this news. Such a wonderful warm caring engaged human being. So kind to me and supportive from the very start. Love and thoughts to all the family.

Valerie was a friend to me, to Liberator and to many in the party.

I remember her proud claim to be "the world's only Jewish Methodist".

As a little girl in the second world war she had been evacuated from London to West Yorkshire. She remained in touch with the family that took her in for the rest of her life.

Six of the Best 587

Lynne Featherstone explains how the state killed her nephew. "The crucial papers were destroyed according [to] the Department of Health."

Max Seddon looks at Putin's new army: "Russia’s campaign to shape international opinion around its invasion of Ukraine has extended to recruiting and training a new cadre of online trolls that have been deployed to spread the Kremlin’s message on the comments section of top American websites."

"I had no idea small children could walk so far. We skipped three miles one day and two miles the next, albeit incentivised by fish and chips or ice creams. At night, the children fell asleep like well-exercised puppies." Patrick Barkham says we have betrayed our children from love of cars.

Kashmir Hill on how an internet mapping glitch turned a random Kansas farm into a digital hell.

London bombsites are photographed today by A London Inheritance.

Tom Cox explores Dunwich.

Those new Liberal Democrat peers in full

According to Guido Fawkes:

• Sir Alan Beith – former MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed and former Chair of the Justice Select Committee

• Sharon Bowles – former MEP for South East England

• Sir Malcolm Bruce – former MP for Gordon, and former Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats

• Lorley Burt – former MP for Solihull and former Chair of the Liberal Democrats 

• Rt Hon Sir Menzies ‘Ming’ Campbell CH, CBE, QC – former MP for North East Fife and former Leader of the Liberal Democrats 

• Lynne Featherstone – former MP for Hornsey and Wood Green and held several ministerial positions 

• Don Foster – former MP for Bath and former Liberal Democrat Chief Whip 

• Jonny Oates – former Chief of Staff to the Deputy Prime Minister in the coalition government 

• Shas Sheehan – former Councillor for Kew and involved in several community groups 

• Sir Andrew Stunell – former MP for Hazel Grove and former Department for Communities and Local Government Minister 

• Dorothy Thornhill MBE – Mayor of Watford; former Councillor and Assistant Headteacher

The Sun names some of the 11 new Liberal Democrat peers

An 'exclusive' from SunNation this evening:

The Sun can reveal they will include at least two ex-MPs thrown out by voters at the general election three months ago, Lorely Burt and Lynn Featherstone. 

Three long-serving Lib Dem grandees who stood down as MPs in May – Sir Alan Beith, Sir Menzies Campbell, and Sir Malcolm Bruce – are also being enobled, alongside defeated ex-MEP Sharon Bowles and Mr Clegg’s former chief of staff Jonny Oates.

The report also says that Danny Alexander and Vince Cable will be knighted.

Later. The full list of Lib Dem peers is here.

Welcome to the new Liberal Democrat bloggers

Could it be that the much-needed revival of Liberal Democrat thinking has reached the blogosphere?

Last month eight (count 'em) new blogs were added to the LibDemBlogs aggregator - many thanks to Ryan Cullen for sending me the list.

Here are the eight:

A Liberal Renewal (written by David Shaw) went to its first two Liberal Democrat meetings at the start of June and has not blogged since. I hope those two facts are not connected.

A Liberal Take (written by Mike Brown) first appeared last year and has recently come back to life. What really catches the idea is a tweet of his from 2010: "The reason I joined the Lib Dems was so that I could help build them back up after they get annihilated after the next election."

Jenni Hollis is chiefly concerned with politics in Haringey and draws lessons from Lynne Featherstone's defeat there in May: "we need to fight smartly as well as working hard, pounding the pavements. And monitoring effectiveness, testing messaging/techniques and adapting plans – rather than just ticking monthly KPI boxes – is key to this."

LibDemFuture (written by Ed Joyce) has a violent yellow background and has already featured guest posts by Gareth Epps and Lembit Opik.

Liberal Thoughts (written by Ceri Phillips) writes on the lack of diversity in the Lib Dem parliamentary party: "it's not so much that it is 'too' anything so much that it 'isn't enough' something else!"

Merry Liberal (written by Peter Stitt) has not seen a post since mid-May. Perhaps he has been two merry?

Some Ramblings (written by Rebecca Plenderleith) has some strong things to say about the Scottish government's failures on child mental health.

Squiffy Liberal (written by Mike Green) wants a hub airport in the North, an end to pointless legislation and to be treasurer of Liberal Youth.

Do visit these news blogs. And if you have a new blog you would like to appear here, please add it to LibDemBlogs.

Six of the Best 437

Lynne Featherstone explains why so much of her casework as an MP arises from the failings of the Labour-run Haringey Council.

Alex's Archives introduces us to the concept of "the free market priesthood".

"These reports demonstrate that OFSTED judgements are not reliable; they do not tell us about a relevant difference in quality, only differences in either circumstances or the personal inclinations of inspection teams." Scenes from the Battleground shows that identical schools can receive different ratings from OFSTED inspectors.

Detritus of Empire suggests that the decline and fall of the Roman Empire began in York.

"During his cross-examination of Bunton, Mr E.J.P. Cussen for the prosecution, asked: ”Are you not sure your object was to steal the portrait from the National Gallery in revenge for the way you had been treated by the authorities over your television licence”? Another Nickel in the Machine writes on Kempton Bunton and the Great Goya Heist at the National Gallery - and much else besides.

The Silly Mid Off on the sad fate of Leslie Hylton, who is the only test cricketer (thus far) to be executed. "Leslie Hylton’s Wisden obituary does not mention his demise, merely passing judgment on his cricketing career."

Six of the Best 428

Lynne Featherstone on the latest steps in the campaign against female genital mutilation.

"The City of London threatens U.S. security and abets corruption. Revisionist powers like Russia have figured out this dynamic and are busy exploiting it." How others see us - in this case Nicholas Shaxson on The American Interest.

Writing for Politico Magazine, Elizabeth Wahl explains what it was like to work for the Russian propaganda machine and why she quit her job on live TV.

"The memorialising of Benn’s eloquence is not only nostalgia. It is a reminder that there is a fundamental connection between speaking well and democratic life in a just society. All of us, instinctively knows this. It is why the characteristic institution of a democracy is a debating chamber. It is why democracies put free speech at the top of their list of fundamental rights. And it is also why all tyrannies start by suppressing speech." On the University of East Anglia blog Eastminster (geddit?!), Alan Finlayson explains why Tony Benn was such a successful rhetorician.

Declaration Game suggests Donnie Darko may hold the key to the exclusion of Kevin Pietersen.

The Slate blog Atlas Obscura has some haunting photographs of Ani, the ancient capital of Armenia. The city declined over the centuries and was abandoned altogether by the mid 18th century. "To visitors, Turkey omits all mentions of Armenia from descriptions of Ani's history and focuses on the city's Turkish and Muslim influences."

Lib Dems choose negotiating team for aftermath of next election

From tomorrow's Guardian:

Danny Alexander, the Treasury chief secretary, is to lead a Liberal Democrat team preparing for possible negotiations with other parties in the event of a hung parliament after the 2015 general election, the Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, told his MPs late Monday. 

A politically balanced, five-strong team has been appointed: Alexander; general election manifesto co-ordinator David Laws; Lady Brinton; international development minister Lynne Featherstone; and pensions minister Steve Webb. Featherstone and Webb are regarded as on the left of the party.

Six of the Best 424

Lynne Featherstone writes in praise of civil servants - and on how to be a minister.

The historical background to the current crisis in Crimea is given by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

"Yes, one must risk the nasty comments from trolls and the doubts of colleagues about the importance of public engagement. But how else can we demonstrate the deep and necessary relationship among specialized knowledge, critical thinking, and the world in which we live?" On The Chronicle of Higher Education, David M. Perry explains why more academics should use the web to write for a general audience.

Cosy Moments discusses the early history of the National Council for Civil Liberties.

Peace Day was celebrated on 28 June 1919. (The Armistice on 11 November 1918, which is still commemorated, was merely a ceasefire to allow the business of negotiating peace with a defeated Germany.) In Swindon the occasion was marked with three nights of rioting, looting and burning the Union Jack. The BBC World War One at Home pages tell us why.

"W.H. Auden had a secret life that his closest friends knew little or nothing about. Everything about it was generous and honorable. He kept it secret because he would have been ashamed to have been praised for it." Edward Mendelson gives some important insights into the character of Britain's greatest 20th-century poet in the New York Review of Books.

Six of the Best 417

"The crucial thing for the Liberal Democrats is whether differentiating themselves from the Conservatives, the visceral anti-Toryism of progressive voters, and Ukip, can save the suburban and south-western seats they hold against the Tories." Lewis Baston discusses how the Liberal Democrats will do at the next election over at Progress Online.

Lynne Featherstone wants us to join her campaign to end female genital mutilation in a generation.

"The Hudson was so polluted that wooden boats from the Caribbean would sail up the river so that the water’s poisons would kill the bore worms that were damaging their hulls." Joseph Berger writes about Pete Seeger's role in saving the Hudson River in the New York Times.

"Bagehot is not entirely forgotten ... but exactly who or what he was is now a little fuzzy in our minds. A few stray bons mots about the monarchy, some connection with the Economist (which keeps his memory green in the pseudonym of a regular columnist) – that is as much as most of us can dredge up." Ferdinand Mount reviews a biography of Walter Bagehot for the London Review of Books.

The Plains of Almeria - under the title "The strange case of Gael Kakuta" - asks if Chelsea's policy of loaning their starlets to lesser clubs is backfiring: "Josh McEachran is a prime example of a player who has impressed in the Chelsea first team but struggled to make an impact on loan."

English Lakes Blog on a homage to the lost Eric Ravilious mural at the Midland Hotel, Morecambe.

Six of the Best 391

Lynne Featherstone visits Bristol  to see for the initiatives taking place in this city to tackle female genital mutilation and violence against girls and women.

Polichic... asks why so much mundane political campaign documentation is marked "Top Secret" or "Highly Confidential".

"Mark Ramprakash burst on to the scene as a teenager in the 1988 NatWest Trophy final between Middlesex and Worcestershire. Coming in at 25 for 4 in pursuit of 162, many youngsters would have followed the lead of their senior team-mates and given their wickets away. When he was out, for 56, Middlesex needed just three more to win." Deep Extra Cover suggests memories of Ramprakash the unfulfilled talent will will be dwarfed by those of the domestic run machine.

The former world champion Garry Kasparov is to challenge the, er, eccentric Kirsan Ilymzhinov for the presidency of FIDE, the governing body of world chess, reports Chessdom.

Steven Gauge remembers his grandfather Reginald, who has died at the age of 104.

Mark Vanhoenacker, in the New York Times, calls for a new bridge for Manhattan to cater for cyclists and pedestrians but not cars.

Six of the Best 308

"Nick needs to listen to the experts in the party who may be able to help him find a way through this. The risks of being so dismissive of the overwhelming view of the party are clear." Caron Lindsay, writing on Lib Dem Voice, calls on Nick Clegg to talk to the opponents of secret courts in his own party.

More in sorrow than anger, Lib Dem Minister Lynne Featherstone takes on the critics of gay marriage.

Paul Linford offers his review of the political year.

Phil's Purple Bus Blog comes across an inconveniently honest customer.

"There’s a second-hand bookshop around the corner from where I live called Ripping Yarns – just a hole in the wall, near a relatively busy intersection, but close to Highgate Woods. It’s been there since before the war but I’m not sure how much longer it will last." Benjamin Markovits, in the London Review of Books, fears for the future of a favourite bookshop and proposes a novel way of securing it.

Go Litel Blog, Go... introduces us to Arthur "Ticker" Mitchell, the hard man of Yorkshire cricket (and lends me this photograph).

The reshuffle made the Lib Dems feel less like a party of government

We know Nick Clegg's ambition is for the Liberal Democrats to become "not ... the third party, but ... one of three parties of government".

Yet one of the reasons I was depressed by the summer's reshuffle (as I blogged when discussing John Kampfner's more optimistic take on it) is that we now seem further from fulfilling this ambition.

I share Nick Harvey's disappointment that we not longer have ministers at Defence or the Foreign Office. And I am not convinced by the posts we have taken instead.

Lynne Featherstone will do a good job at Overseas Development if she is allowed. But it may well be that moving Andrew Mitchell away from the department was a prelude to a Cameron decision to drop his pledge to spend 0.7 per cent of gross national income on overseas aid. There are no signs of it so far, but it would be in line with his strategy of moving right to please his back-benches and core voters.

And, much as I like David Heath, I fear that becoming the public face of the badger cull will do him or his party no favours.

But then Nick came out in favour of a cull as long ago as June 2008. As I blogged at the time, I was puzzled by the politics of this:

I do not know if culling badgers to prevent bovine TB is good science, but I am sure that it is bad politics. It may play well go down well in a few rural constituencies, but it will go down very badly in many more urban and suburban seats. Like Sheffield Hallam, for instance. 

This feels very much like a return to the 1970s, when the old Liberal Party's fortunes depended on clinging on to a handful of seats where the farming interest was strong. I thought we had all moved on since then.

Given that the Liberal Party I joined in the late seventies combined that pragmatic defence of local farming interests with high-minded statements about poverty, the changes in the reshuffle feel very much like a case of back to the future.

Nick Clegg makes a Liberal case on education and social mobility

Nick Clegg gave a major speech on education and social mobility at The New North Academy in Islington. You can read the full text on the Cabinet Office website.

I find this an immensely encouraging speech. The danger was that, having succeeded in securing his cherished Pupil Premium, Nick would find himself defending it in the language of Labourism: ring fencing, benchmarking, rolling out a programme and so on.

But today's he did away with that stultifying agenda altogether.

As Jonathan Jones notes on the Spectator's Coffee House blog:

While he used the terms ‘fair’, ‘fairness’ ‘social mobility’ and ‘socially mobile’ once each in his speech, the Deputy Prime Minister also used ‘freedom’ six times. ‘The coalition has no desire to micromanage schools,’ he said. ‘We all remember the worst excesses of that approach’. So the pupil premium cash won’t come with requirements on how it is spent: ‘Use it as you see fit’, Clegg tells schools.

In short, it was a thoroughly Liberal speech, looking to local initiative and innovation rather than local control.

Nick has also been widely quoted as rubbishing plans to bring in regional differences in public-sector pay - see the Guardian for an example. This pleases me for reasons I explained in a post on this blog in March.

Finally, I cannot share Nick's enthusiasm for summer schools. If children are not being properly taught in primary schools then I am not convinced that a fortnight of extra schooling is going to put that right. The answer must lie in improving summer schools.

I also fear that holding summer schools for poor children will be stigmatising and fail to tackle the problem that Nick is so determined to tackle: the segregation of education along class lines.

As thinkers from Baden Powell to Lynne Featherstone have recognised, the progressive thing to do is to encourage the mixing of social classes.

Six of the Best 197

Lynne Featherstone remembers Sir Simon Milton.

Paul Tyler has argued that pressure groups should be subject to scrutiny too. Eaten by Missionaries agrees with him.

"I just received this email about a school in Devon undergoing building works: 'Our two boys attend a grammar school in Devon ... where they were told in assembly that with the construction of a new block they were not to speak to any builder, and that no builder must speak to them or he will face dismissal. How can we possibly hope to build any kind of better (or 'big') society with such an frightening lack of trust, not to mention courtesy? The school's instructions sound like something out of a 1950s sci-fi nightmare.'" A depressing tale from Josie Appleton's blog for the Manifesto Club.

journalism.co.uk reports the latest appearance of Alan Rusbridger, Ian Hislop and other editors before Westminster's joint committee on privacy and injunctions.

Did you know that a Spanish Republican merchant ship was was fired on and sunk by a Francoist gunboat off the Norfolk coast near Cromer? Hayes Peoples History has the story: "After landing at Cromer, the crew made their way to Lowestoft and then on the East Anglia express to Liverpool Street, London. On reaching their destination huge cheering crowds gathered to welcome them and show support for the Republican cause."

Did you know that Alan Garner's Elidor was first written as a radio play? Roger Howe on the Diversity Website has the story.

When Tony Benn was still Anthony Wedgwood Benn

On her blog, Lynne Featherstone points us to an article by Carol Morley in today's Observer. It deals with the life and death of Joyce Carol Vincent, who was found dead in her North London flat after her body had lain undiscovered for three years. Her story has been made into a film, Dreams of a Life, which is to be shown at the London Film Festival.

Lynne herself features in Morley's article, having tried without success to interest the authorities in the case, but I was struck by a very minor point in the article.

Morley says of Joyce Carol Vincent:

She was born in 1965, the year the Post Office Tower opened, which Tony Benn later referred to as a symbol of our age – an age in which we worship the internet, television, mobile phones.

But Tony Benn did not say this "later" at all. He said it at the time. Because in 1965 he was Postmaster General and one of the bigwigs at the tower's opening.

A Guardian article by Nigel Fountain from 2000 describes his attitude that day:

While Big Ben had represented "the fussy grandeur of the Gothic revival that epitomised the Victorian imperial affluence, built on the foundation of the first industrial revolution", as the postmaster-general, a Mr Anthony Wedgwood Benn, had pithily proclaimed at the opening, "the Post Office tower, lean, practical and futuristic, symbolises the technical and architectural skill of this new age." 

Good old new ages, where would we be without them? At the time, Tony Benn - as he became when he, too, opted to be lean, practical and futuristic - reckoned a new definition of a Cockney would be someone born within sight of the tower.

You can even see footage of him that day on the British Pathe site. (My current internet connection cannot cope with it, so I have not seen this newsreel myself.)

Shortly afterwards Anthony Wedgwood Benn became even more lean, practical and futuristic and took charge of the Ministry of Technology - or Mintech, as he liked to call it. The days when Tony Benn (as he was later to become) would present himself as a sage who laughed at the follies of our technological age were then far ahead of him.

But then Carol Morley is not the first person to be taken in by accepting Benn at his own estimation. In a House Points column a couple of years ago I recalled his role in the banning of pirate radio and then asked:

Do the sweet young things who hang upon his words about global warming know that when a minister in the 1970s he forced through the construction of the coal-burning Drax power station?

People can get upset when you point out historical ironies of this sort, but I am with Cicero: "To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child."

Praise for Lynne Featherstone over Great Ormond Street

Andrew Gilligan, now the Daily Telegraph's London editor, wrote an article yesterday about Great Ormond Street Hospital's dishonourbale attempt to absolve itself of its share of the blame for the death of Peter Connelly (Baby P).

Writing of one of the doctors who has blown the whistle on the hospital, he concluded:

Kim Holt is very lucky to have as her MP the superb Lynne Featherstone, who has been fighting her constituent’s corner for the last three years. The hospital has been sabre-rattling against her as well, publishing on its website a, shall we say, unsatisfactory account of its dealings over the issue. Ms Featherstone has now published her response – and she, too, accuses Great Ormond Street of “concealing” and “misleading.”
This kind of behaviour is always a deeply telling sign of an institution in real trouble. Ms Featherstone has called on Ms Collins to resign, and says that if what is known now had been known at the time, she would have gone three years ago, along with Haringey’s Sharon Shoesmith. I agree.

Lynne Featherstone calls on chief executive of Great Ormond Street Hospital to resign

The term "social worker" is often used as easy and unfair shorthand when the shortcomings of the caring professions are discussed. This was certainly the case in the death of Peter Connelly ("Baby Peter"), when the medical profession bore a heavy responsibility too.

And yesterday Mark Pack reported on Liberal Democrat Voice:

Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone today called for Jane Collins, Chief Executive of Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), to resign after the BBC published evidence that key criticisms of the hospital were withheld from an inquiry into the death of Baby Peter. In a further twist today, claims by the hospital that they subsequently did provide all the evidence to a second investigation were denied by the person who ran that investigation.

Lynne Featherstone added on her own blog:

Haringey was rightly in the spotlight as the lead agency in the wake of the Baby P tragedy – but perhaps that spotlight detracted from the terribly dangerous conditions in which vulnerable children were being left by the management failures by GOSH.

The fact that these failings – this vital information – never reached the Serious Case Review because it was removed from the addendum submitted to the Serious Case Review is a scandal. Dr Collins is the author of the addendum.

I have called for an investigation into the withholding of this vital information and wait to see whether real justice will be done.

For the full background to Great Ormond Street's involvement in this case, Lynne commended a report on the BBC London pages.

Six of the Best 115

The first Coalition Home Office bill to receive Royal Assent sees the cancellation of Labour's national identity card scheme. Lynne Featherstone rejoices.

Blunt & Disorderly has advice for all three parties: "The Tories need to see that some of their policies are half-baked ideas (they don’t seem to have thought much about the Big Society, for example); Labour need to be constructive, not petty; and the Lib Dems need to stop being a punch bag and develop a vision of their role in government."

"A high self-regard, lack of even a short historical perspective, and fetishisation of their consumer electronics has given these protesters an obnoxious idea of their own novelty. Their yearning for the easy economy of the status quo ante makes them not a radical new force in British politics, but a conservative backlash against new uncertainties. They are far less interesting than they consider themselves to be." Stratagem XXXVIII has little time for the student protestors.

Missive from Doktorb considers what the new constituency boundaries may look like in Greater Manchester if the number of MPs is reduced. Pleasingly, Littleborough & Saddleworth is reborn.

I was of a child of the sixties, when road safety involved the rather stern Kerb Drill ("At the kerb, halt.") Come the 1970s and kids learnt the more touchy feely Green Cross Code. Found Objects has a video from 1976 in which Jon Pertwee can be seen teaching it. I am not sure "Splink!" ever caught on though.

Blood & Treasure celebrates "the only authentic Christmas record ever to hit the charts".

More in sorrow than in Ongar

Earlier today a party member happily tweeted a link to an article on the Brentwood and Ongar Liberal Democrats website.

Under the headline:

Shock at lack of safety checks for "Lighting Up Brentwood"

it complains that the local council has allowed people to act as volunteers at a public event without having Criminal Record Bureau checks.

The arguments deployed range from the toe curling:

"I express my concern over this matter in the strongest of terms, both as an elected councillor representing hundreds of Brentwood families and as the auntie of a three year old boy.

to the spurious:

"CRB checks are also in place to protect the employee/volunteer too and they could be putting themselves in a vulnerable position of facing an accusation.

Fortunately, the relevant minister, Lynne Featherstone, takes a more sensible view:

In the wake of Soham, we were all so horrified by what had happened – that child protection concerns resulted in the introduction of the Vetting and Barring Scheme. All those who would wish to work with vulnerable adults and children had to go through this scheme (which would include CRB checks) to be vetted and if necessary barred from such work. Lists are kept of those who are barred from such work by the scheme.

The consequences of this scheme would have been nine million people having to register – had it become fully operational.

So – the allied action the Government is taking is a review of the Vetting and Barring Scheme to scale it back – as per the coalition agreement – to common sense levels. We are just in the process of setting the Terms of Reference for this review.

The world of suspicious minds we all inadvertently created went too far. Together, these two reviews, Vetting and Barring and the Criminal Records checks, will help us get the balance right.