Before my election to the Senedd I was a child protection social worker. I worked with some of the most vulnerable children and young people in society and those staff dedicated to giving them every chance to thrive. That is why I jumped at the chance to table a debate on legislative proposal in the […]
Op-eds
Is Boris Johnson gambling on tonight’s Euro final to boost herd immunity?
Crowding together. Shouting. Singing. Welcome to the excitement of football. As England and Italy prepare for the Euro final, scientists are concerned that football is helping drive up Covid-19 infection rates by allowing potentially super spreader events such as the finals at Wembley and Wimbledon. It is predicted that seven million pints will be served […]
Hancock: Emergent class of rulebreakers are undermining government
Will he go or will he stay? Can Hancock survive a sneaky snog and buttock fondle that took place at a time when he was telling us all to social distance? Matt Hancock survived Dominic Cumming’s torpedoes and hell has no fury like a political adviser scorned. Hancock has the prime minister’s backing. Well, Johnson […]
We need to shout about …….. Community choirs
No sooner are we past the so-called freedom day than the Johnson government finally starts believing in the vaccine programme, having systematically undermined it for the last two months by pretending that vaccinated people pose a risk, should not socialise, travel and must be treated in the same way as those who have not been […]
World Review: Netanyahu, G7, corporation tax and going green
In this week’s look at world news, LDV’s foreign affairs editor Tom Arms reviews the situation in Israel where Netanyahu looks set to be ousted by a coalition held together, for now at least, by their opposition to the country’s leader of 12 years. Cornwall will host the G7 summit later this week. Boris Johnson […]
How easily we have surrendered our private freedoms….
Embed from Getty Images On Sunday we had a visit from a relative in the garden at a two metre distance. On Monday they kindly returned and we hugged several times. The difference between the two days? A date ordained, probably wrongly, by the UK government related to private behaviour in our home (and garden). […]
Rennie: Tackle drug addiction with compassion and treatment, not imprisonment
Liberal Democrats care about people being able to fulfil their potential and getting the care and support they need to recover from illness and addiction. That’s why our Scottish manifesto highlights the need to take a public health approach to addiction. Scotland has the highest drug deaths rate in Europe, something which became very real […]
Depression, Section 136 and a Senedd Candidate
Recently reading that nearly 5 people every day were sectioned across Wales during 2020 really had an effect on me. I decided to stand for election because of my experience not only in the business world but because I am one of those detentions by the police under section 136 of the 1983 mental health […]
One year on from the first lockdown: still not out of the woods
Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote a blog for Lib Dem Voice on the Government being behind the curve in introducing measures to curb the spread of Covid-19. Little did we know then what was coming then. By 21 March last year, there had already been more than 400 deaths from Covid in UK […]
Linking the Test and Trace scandal to local election campaigning
Conservatives despise local government. English local authorities have been starved of funds since the coalition government began, with a sharper downward curve since 2015. The one-size fits-all model of elected mayors has been imposed on successive ‘city regions’ – in the case of Yorkshire, against the settled preference of almost all the local authorities in the […]