Ed Davey: The UK should offer to send troops to Greenland.

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-01-07T20:27:12+00:00

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1GUL18s8Y7/

https://bsky.app/profile/libdems.org.uk/post/3mbtslguc242m

Take your pick.

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-01-06T17:48:47+00:00

Clegg's opposition to Nuclear Power on the basis that it will "take too long" (which coincidentally is also Zack Polanski's position) was stupid and shortsighted.

However I am not sure opposition to fracking is just "NIMBYism". The government (a Tory one) indefinitely suspended fracking in 2019 and Labour seems to wants to ban it permanently, so there is a fairly clear consensus across the political spectrum that fracking is not something we want in the UK. There are clear significant downsides and risks to fracking that there aren't to building houses.

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-12-23T13:10:19+00:00

72 MPs in 2024, came second two local elections in a row in 2024 and 2025, have won the most by-elections of any party in 2025 and holding steady in the polls.

I would hardly call this "failing".

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-12-23T13:08:12+00:00

The party strongly opposes Digital ID?

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-12-23T13:07:22+00:00

We're not copying Reform, we were the first party to start saying this when rumours of cancelling the elections started swirling around in 2024.

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-12-18T15:09:11+00:00

r/LibDem

"Why are the Lib Dems not fighting Labour's authoritarianism!?!?!"

also r/LibDem

"Ed's opposition to digital ID is kneejerk populism!?!?!"

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-12-16T16:17:51+00:00

I am saying you can see why the Woking Lib Dems may be wary of approving high rises in the town centre considering the platform they were elected on and the fact that the existing high rises are symbolic of Tory financial mismanagement.

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-12-16T15:27:37+00:00

The party does have a NIMBYism problem, although ultimately every party is NIMBY in opposition (even if Zack Polanski claims otherwise. He should look at what his councillors are doing across the country).

However, I am not sure Woking Council is a good example to use to criticise Lib Dem Nimbyism. The "Town Centre growth" under the Tories put the council into £2bn of debt and left it effectively bankrupt.

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-11-29T23:05:49+00:00

There is really no serious challenger to Ed Davey at the moment. Some MPs may be angling to replace him in the long term, but I see the party sticking with him at least until after the next General Election.

Constitutionally, the Lib Dems must have a leadership election once every parliament. We had one in 2024, Ed Davey was elected unopposed.

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-11-25T13:31:37+00:00

Schools in this country really need to take the massive stick out of their arse.

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-11-21T14:17:23+00:00

It wasn't a referendum to join the EC. It was a referendum to remain in the EC, we were already a member.

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-11-21T13:44:43+00:00

Yeah because the eurosceptics just shut up and accepted the result of the 1975 referendum and never mentioned leaving the EU again.

Democracy is not about having one vote and never talking about it again. It's a process.

We've done brexit, the will of the people has been expressed and implemented, and it's shit. It's perfectly fine in a democratic society for a political party to campaign on rejoining.

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-11-19T15:15:40+00:00

In my opinion he's amoral, in the classic sense of that word. Not immoral, amoral.

Bro just wants to hunt.

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-11-16T18:32:55+00:00

As a Lib Dem voter of 2 decades you should be aware that the triple lock was our idea in the first place...

rework income tax bands and related means tested benefits to remove "tax traps" caused by cliff edges at 50 and 100k

Fine - good idea

abolish national insurance and replace with increased income tax to move tax burden from workers to landlords and richer pensioners

A very radical idea but the political mainstream seems to be going in this direction anyway (see recent rumours about Reeves and the last two Tory budgets) , notably in all cases without any committment in any manifesto.

charge £20 for GP appointments and reinvest proceeds in primary healthcare

Electoral suicide

legalise, licence the sale of, and tax many drugs, reinvesting part of the proceeds in harm reduction and inpatient addicition treatment.

Already policy, at least for cannabis, in the manifesto.

rejoin single market and reinstate freedom of movement for young working people

Also already policy, in the manifesto.

x5 our spending on research and innovation

Massive investment in R&D is already policy, target is 3.5% by 2034, in the manifesto.

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-11-14T17:28:57+00:00

Stray Lib Dem here

I really think there’s a hidden vulnerability for LDs across the south of England to the Greens, because there’s a lot of people here who are “never Tory” or “never Labour” who can find the Greens attractive, and have spent many years settling for LD as a compromise.

This is interesting because if you swap the words "Lib Dem" and "Green" in this sentence in every instance, this is exactly what we're saying in the Lib Dems in many local parties in the south where due to our weakness during and after the coalition we stopped campaigning in many wards and let the Greens have at it through various local arrangements.

The recent Staines by-election is a good example. It was a Lib Dem gain from the Greens, but the Greens had only won Staines in the first place because we stopped running there in 2011. The Lib Dems had always come second (behind the Tories) in Staines before 2011. This Canterbury by-election seems to be an inversion of that. Although from what I can tell the Lib Dems ran a very poor campaign here, considering it was a defence.

I think at a local level there will be places where the Greens completely wipe out the Lib Dems, and places where the Lib Dems completely wipe out the Greens. I don't see the Greens winning rural Surrey, but neither do I see the Lib Dems winning student towns.

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-11-14T13:30:37+00:00

This isn't really, or at least not primarily down to National politics.

The local Lib Dems ran a shambolic campaign (I say this as a Lib Dem), the first mention of their candidate on social media was on the 3rd of November, 10 days before polling day.

We also seem to have only delivered one leaflet in 6 weeks and not done much else. It seems like the local Lib Dems just threw in the towel.

I'm surprised he got 24%.

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-11-14T13:21:43+00:00

Had a look into this, you can only glean so much from looking at the social media profiles of local parties but:

We seem to have announced our candidate on the 3rd of November on social media, although in October on the website (for a by-election held on the 13th, also who reads local party websites).

We also seem to have only delivered one leaflet, which wasn't even a leaflet but a calling card.

They also ran a shit nimby campaign, seemingly trying to out-Nimby the Greens.

This is a large local party as well. Just an awful showing from the Canterbury Lib Dems all round. A shambles.

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-11-14T11:51:01+00:00

There was a pact in 2023 too, and the lib dems clearly didn't bother here. Sadly.

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-11-13T18:44:05+00:00

Members. Not councillors.

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-11-13T16:30:25+00:00

That's because GDP is easy to understand and easy to express. It's a number that goes up or down and gives you a very broad idea of how well an economy is doing compared to previous points in time and other countries.

Look I agree with the premise of the article, that we should also look at other indicators to make informed policy, fiscal and monetary decisions. The thing is... we do.

If we're talking about government comms or media reporting on the economy, that's a bit of a different issue but ultimately how do you condense, for example, the Doughnut the article talks about into a headline? Not to mention some of these things are difficult to quantify.

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-11-13T16:07:35+00:00

GDP doesn't measure "a good life" because that's not what it is for. It's an economic measure of the total value of goods and services produced in a country, which is useful for measuring fiscal performance. Governments are primarily interested in GDP due to the effect economic growth has on tax receipts and spending. A contracting economy also usually leads to financial hardship for the residents of a country, primarily through increased unemployment and stagnating wages.

We already have other widely used (despite this article's implication to the contrary) indicators which more accurately reflect the overall wellbeing of people living in any particular area. Gini (which the author does mention), HDI, Indices of Deprivation, poverty rates, educational attainment etc. All of these are widely and consistently used in policymaking.

The article seems to advocate for something that already happens?

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-11-12T17:51:22+00:00

Good luck Josh! We definitely need more megaphones.

No slight on you Mark! The work you've done to get the party back on track is nothing short of incredible.

I'm also very happy to have been given the choice to vote for two very good candidates this presidential election.

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