Archive for: Political Database

Vuelio’s Sam Webber highlights how candidates of all parties are facing high levels of abuse in this election campaign and how many are using social media to highlight what his happening on the ground in different constituencies and to call it out. One challenge for the next government through the Online Harms White Paper will be to improve the online environment for users and to ensure it is regulated more effectively.

As votes are cast in today’s General Election, parties and policies aside, one of the more damaging aspects of the campaign has been the abuse directed towards candidates and party activists. This is often intensified by or begins on digital platforms.

Social media has also offered candidates the opportunity to highlight what has been happening on the ground in different constituencies, which might not otherwise be picked up beyond local or regional press. While not exclusively, this abuse seems to be directed more heavily towards female candidates of all parties.

Labour candidate Natalie Fleet, defending the Labour seat of Ashfield, tweeted a photo of her Nottinghamshire campaign HQ with its windows smashed.

Tweeting out a photo of the damaged shop front, she said: ‘This is the reason those that love me didn’t want me to do it. It is hard, yet I can’t stand by & see #Ashfield left behind.’

She spoke to the Guardian about the attack: ‘It’s deliberate, it’s targeted and it’s not very nice; and, unfortunately, in this climate it’s also predictable.’

A Liberal Democrat candidate, Hannah Perkin, standing in Faversham and Mid Kent said last month: ‘I have the police coming to my house tomorrow following personal threats to the safety of myself, my friends and my family. I am standing up for what I believe in. When did we lose the ability to do that? Honestly heartbroken.’

Luke Pollard, the Labour candidate for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport also reported a case of homophobic graffiti on his campaign office to the police. He said: ‘There is no place for hate in our city and I will continue to call it out wherever and whenever I see it… There is no place for hate but with each attack more and more people stand up against it.’

Only this week, the Transport Minister Nusrat Ghani tweeted out a photo of racist hate mail she received and said: ‘Today’s post – so I’m the racist & being told to go back to where I come from?’

While the number of MPs standing down at the 2019 General Election at 74, is lower than the 1997 election where 117 MPs stood down and 2010 when 149 stood down, many have noted the number of MPs and primarily women who have stepped down citing the pressure of serving in the House of Commons since the EU Referendum and indeed citing social media abuse.

Among the 74 people are a significant number of female MPs who have served as cabinet ministers including Nicky Morgan who took the rare step as the serving Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary to announce she would not be contesting the election as a Conservative candidate. Morgan said part of the reason for stepping down included the abuse she received for ‘doing the job of a modern MP’. She added: ‘I think the abuse, because of the platforms, because of how strongly people feel about the current political situation, that has changed enormously in the almost 10 years since I started’.

Justine Greening, Amber Rudd and Dame Caroline Spelman also stood down as well as prominent opposition MPs including Gloria De Piero, Heidi Allen, Labour deputy leader Tom Watson and former Conservative minister and brother of the Prime Minister, Jo Johnson.

As the campaign concludes this week, the National Police Chiefs’ Council told the Press Association 198 reports around candidate safety had been made between November 15 and December 4 and that around half were serious enough to be treated as crimes. The majority of these were allegations of malicious communications online, but there were also reports of criminal damage and harassment.

Vuelio’s recent White Paper, The Politics of Social Media, which was discussed in a fringe meeting at Conservative Conference attended by Nicky Morgan looked at the changing role of social media in British politics. The 2019 campaign has only highlighted the importance of online campaigning even more. The next stages of the Online Harms White Paper, which seeks to improve the online environment for users and tighten up regulation will be a major issue for the incoming Government whatever the result of today’s election.

Sam Webber is External Relations Manager at Vuelio. He is a prospective parliamentary candidate in the general election, standing for the Liberal Democrats in Erith and Thamesmead.

This blogpost is part of a cross-party series on Vuelio’s political blog Point of Order which publishes insight and opinion to help public affairs, policy makers and comms professionals stay ahead of political change and be connected to those who campaign on the issues they care about. The blog has recently published on voter turnout and opinion polling, the immigration system, the environment and tackling the climate emergency. To find out more or contribute, get in touch with Vuelio Politics.

Conservative candidate and most recent Justice Committee Chair Bob Neill says that the UK justice system is ‘as integral a part of our social services as anything else, employing, directly or indirectly, some immensely dedicated, talented and brave people’. He calls for greater investment in our prisons, more money for the legal aid system and a proper strategy for recruiting, retaining and making the best use of magistrates, who deal with around 95% of criminal cases.

For many, the justice system can seem a distant and complex web of solemn juries and impenetrable legalese. Taken together with the fact most of us rarely have any direct contact with it, it can be easy to see why the sector is frequently overlooked and often under-appreciated. However, we do so to the detriment of us all.

Indeed, the justice system underpins everything we do, managing how we deal with those who break the rules and offend; how we try constructively to prevent that, protecting the public from harm and supporting the victims of crime; and how, wherever possible, we attempt to rehabilitate those who have done wrong, giving them the tools they need to forge a second chance for themselves. At the same time, our courts system helps to protect our fundamental rights, provides us with a means of seeking redress when the law is broken, and resolves disputes between individuals and businesses. These are all measures of a civilised society.

It is for those reasons the justice system is as integral a part of our social services as anything else, employing, directly or indirectly, some immensely dedicated, talented and brave people. It needs to be properly resourced and the people working in it better supported.

Against that backdrop, the Justice Committee, which I had the privilege to Chair over the course of the last two Parliaments, has in recent years carried out an ambitious and broad programme of scrutiny on everything from bailiffs and the enforcement of debt to the probation system and the small claims limit.

So, what needs doing?

In short, from a criminal justice standpoint, we need greater investment in our prisons so we can recruit more staff and, importantly, retain experienced officers; reform the prison estate, to ensure it remains fit for purpose; and make education and training opportunities central, providing support to help offenders find employment and housing once released. The recent announcement, included in the Conservative Party Manifesto, to create a prisoner education service focused on work-based training and skills is a very welcome first step.

To those who doubt the need for reform, I would say this: with the cost of reoffending estimated to be £18 billion a year, and recidivism rates remaining stubbornly high, the stark reality is that none of us as taxpayers are receiving value for money. All but the most serious offenders will one day be released from prison. The current status quo, in which not enough support is available to ensure those same people don’t simply revert back to a life of crime once on the outside, is neither economical nor does it represent smart justice.

From a civil justice perspective, we have to make sure our courts are more efficiently run and properly maintained, also putting more money into our legal aid system to ensure access to justice isn’t hindered. One of our main concerns has been an increasingly depleted magistracy. Given these volunteers deal with around 95% of criminal cases and a substantial proportion of non-criminal work, including family law cases, it’s a challenge that needs to be urgently addressed via a proper strategy for recruiting, retaining and making best use of our magistrates, including through advertising campaigns and work-based support schemes to help those who serve.

Whichever party comes out on top on 12th December, these will be the tasks incoming ministers have to grapple with. A good start would be to move forward with a pragmatic, evidence-based approach that seeks consensus across the House of Commons on these vitally important issues.

This is a guest post from Bob Neill, who has been Chair of the Justice Committee since 2015. He is the Conservative candidate for Bromley and Chislehurst.

Former Conservative MEP and environmental campaigner Stanley Johnson writes that despite backing remain in the referendum, he now fully supports his son Boris as Prime Minister, who is seeking to ‘Get Brexit Done’ as long as the UK and EU can continue to work together on world-leading environmental policies.

During the seventies and eighties, I was personally involved, both as an MEP and as a senior official of the European Commission, in drafting environmental legislation on a wide range of issues such as air and water pollution, the disposal of waste, noise and nature protection; measures which have since been introduced and applied on a common basis among EU Member States.

In the run-up to the EU Referendum in June 2016, I co-founded (with Baroness Young of Old Scone) and co-chaired an all-party group called Environmentalists for Europe. We argued that the UK had contributed in important respects to the development of EU environmental policy and had derived much benefit from it.

So, I can’t pretend that the result of the Referendum, with its clear majority for Leave as opposed to Remain (17.4 million against 16.1 million votes), did not come as a shock. It was not what we were hoping for. Since then, however, my personal preference has been clear. The people having spoken with a clear voice, we have to deliver the goods and ‘Get Brexit Done’.

But that doesn’t mean that one-time Remainers like me have forgotten about the environment. Far from it. My concern now is that in leaving the EU, we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

As I write, opinion polls suggest that the Conservative Party is on course to achieve a working majority. In that context, the commitments made in the recently-released Conservative Manifesto are obviously relevant to any assessment of ‘the environmental future’.

The climate issue is a case in point. Last Monday, 25 November, the World Meteorological Office Secretary-General Petteri Taalas announced: ‘There is no sign of a slowdown, let alone a decline, in greenhouse gases concentration in the atmosphere despite all the commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

‘We need to translate the commitments into action and increase the level of ambition for the sake of the future welfare of the mankind. It is worth recalling that the last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years ago. Back then, the temperature was 2-3°C warmer, sea level was 10-20 meters higher than now.’

The Conservative Manifesto states: ‘The climate emergency means that the challenges we face stretch far beyond our borders. We will lead the global fight against climate change by delivering on our world-leading target of Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.’

It goes on to say: ‘We have doubled International Climate Finance. And we will use our position hosting the UN Climate Change Summit in Glasgow in 2020 to ask our global partners to match our ambition.’

As we look ahead to next year’s key Climate Summit, COP26, in Glasgow (and in the light of the woeful situation highlighted this week by WMO), UK diplomats and negotiators will have to be ready to work overtime. Whereas the eyes of their political masters may be trained on potential trade deals with other key players (Japan, US, Australia, India, China, Canada etc), our diplomats will need to focus on how the UK can continue – once outside the EU – to play a leading role in dealing with the world’s key environmental challenges.

Ironically, rebuilding bridges with the EU (retrieving the baby from the bathwater?) as far as the environment is concerned at least, may well be one of the key priorities. After all, as the Prime Minister is keen to remind us: we are leaving the EU; we are not leaving Europe.

This is a guest post from Christine Jardine, the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary and Women and Equalities spokesperson. She is the Lib Dem candidate for Edinburgh West.

Christine writes that ‘The UK’s immigration system is broken’ and proposes that her party ‘will take immigration powers away from the Home Office so that visa and asylum decisions are made quickly and fairly’, and allow asylum seekers to work while their cases are decided.

The UK’s immigration system is broken, and it is hurting everyone. I struggle to think of a time when the mention of the word ‘immigration’ during an election campaign was a sign of anything but an announcement of more ways to denigrate and marginalise the millions of migrants who have made the UK their home – who pay their taxes and work for our NHS, who build their businesses and their families as part of an open and welcoming British society.

Instead, we see immigration speeches that are tailor-made for what prospective Home Secretaries think are the lowest common denominator of British people – scoring points off the back of hard-working people based on where they were born. I think they’re wrong. I don’t believe that British people are mean-spirited or unwelcoming – I think they’ve been let down by politicians who are all too eager to blame immigrants for their own failings. For too long, the two main parties have scored points off the backs of hard-working people. Decades of hostile policies and rhetoric from Labour and Conservative governments have created a system that no one trusts, and that fails to respect people’s dignity.

Employers can’t recruit the workers they need, leaving the NHS short of nurses and social care in crisis. People without documents are denied access to healthcare and housing. Far too many people are detained indefinitely, in inhumane conditions and at great expense. Families are separated by unfair, complex visa requirements. The Windrush generation has been failed, deported, removed from their families, and some died without an inkling of an apology. Public confidence in the system has been shattered.

And in this election, there’s a risk we’ll be taken out of the EU and free movement will end. Millions more people cast into the abject failure of the Home Office, facing the risk of deportation away from their home, their work and their loved ones simply because neither Labour nor the Conservatives believe they are worth standing up for.

Liberal Democrats believe in a different approach. We will scrap the Conservatives’ Hostile Environment, replacing their fishing-net approach with targeted, intelligence-led immigration enforcement. We will take immigration powers away from the Home Office so that visa and asylum decisions are made quickly and fairly. We will restore dignity and common sense by ending indefinite detention and allowing asylum seekers to work while their cases are decided. And we will stop Brexit and save free movement.

At the same time, we recognise the danger posed to those who attempt to get to the UK illegally. In Essex, only a few weeks ago, we saw the horrifying results of a failed enforcement system. Liberal Democrats will invest in officers, training and technology to prevent illegal entry at Britain’s borders, tackle the smuggling of people, weapons, drugs and wildlife, and at the same time help refugees and asylum seekers who have fallen victim to cross-border criminal enterprises.

With that comes a moral obligation to play our part in the world – to stand tall and welcome those whose homes, lives, and countries have been destroyed by conflict and rendered too dangerous to return by widespread violence. Liberal Democrats will meet our obligations – resettling 10,000 vulnerable refugees each year and help 10,000 unaccompanied refugee children from across Europe over the next 10 years. These people have already seen their homes destroyed – the very least we can do is open our arms to them and tell them that the UK is a place they can be safe and rebuild their lives.

With a Liberal Democrat government, every person will have their dignity respected and UK employers will be able to recruit the workers they need. Those who choose to come to the UK to work, study or join their families will be welcomed for the skills and contributions that they bring. Family unity will be protected; the rule of law will be respected; and we will ensure fairness for taxpayers. Liberal Democrats will build a brighter future, with a fair, effective immigration system that treats everyone with dignity and respect.

Plaid Cymru’s Westminster Leader Liz Saville Roberts writes that ‘the last few days have seen the mask slip for the Conservative Party’ and argues that her party’s agreement with two other Remain parties to work together in 60 key seats ‘offers a stark contrast’.

Politics is pointless if it is not underpinned by principles. The values which we hold define our world-view. The last few days have seen the mask slip for the Conservative Party and the arrogant, yahoo, old boys’ club mentality that they have desperately tried to distance themselves from returned to centre stage.

The election race has barely begun, and we have already seen Conservative Party candidates taking deplorable moral stances and engaging in dubious backtracking.

A day-one resignation marked the beginning of their election campaign this week.

The Secretary of State for Wales Alun Cairns was forced to stand down when he lied about ‘categorically’ having no prior knowledge of a former aide’s role in collapsing a rape trial.

This deplorable behaviour exposes the lengths to which the Conservative Party will go in order to cover their tracks, not only demonstrating a flagrant disregard for our justice system, but also a disturbing lack of morality, let alone empathy.

My only hope is that his resignation brings some comfort to the victim. But a fundamental question still remains: if it was bad enough for Mr Cairns to resign as Secretary of State, why does he think himself fit to stand again for public office?

Mr Cairns’ resignation follows Jacob Rees-Mogg’s horrendous comments regarding the victims of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. Mr Rees-Mogg alleged that leaving the building was the ‘common sense thing to do’.

From these comments we can only conclude that Mr Rees-Mogg believes the advice of either the Fire Brigade lacked common sense, or the victims of fire themselves did.

This not only shows a fundamental lack of empathy on Mr Rees-Mogg’s part, but also calls into question his views on public services such as the Fire Brigade, seemingly presuming he is above the advice of those trusted with protecting us in dangerous situations. Or possibly that those who follow the advice of these services have no one to blame but themselves.

His equally repugnant Tory colleague, Andrew Bridgen, proceeded to exacerbate the situation when he leapt to defend Mr Rees-Mogg, claiming the comments were a ‘by-product of what Jacob is’.

These comments reflect precisely what ‘Jacob’ believes he is – a man whose over-inflated sense of intellect and authority makes him believe he is above any of the trials faced by those of us who weren’t born-to-rule.

Mr Rees-Mogg later stated that he was ‘profoundly sorry’ for the comments and that he would have in fact ‘listened to the fire brigade’s advice’. However, I’m sure these words ring hollow for those who witnessed the horrors of Grenfell first hand, especially when coming from a man so far removed from the harsh reality of the situation.

The actions of these two men not only showcases their incompetent and negligent attitude, but also draws attention to a much greater issue at the heart of the Conservative Party: a reckless disregard for those they hurt. An entrenched belief in victim blaming. A party so enamoured of the old boys’ network mentality of ‘anything goes’ that they are not only permitting but encouraging damaging and disgraceful behaviour toward the public. A party whose interests are solely their own, and to hell with who they hurt in the process.

These are values we cannot allow to find their way back into our politics.

So, slogans and Facebook adverts aside, this Tory party is far from modern and relevant. More back to the past than forward to the future.

It is a leap to past principles that even if they were not eradicated from our politics, parties should be embarrassed to harbour.

The grown-up principled politics of my party, Plaid Cymru, in coming to an agreement with two other opposition parties to field one pro-Remain candidate in key seats offers a stark contrast.

We have put our countries before parties, where others are putting their parties before all else. In the case of the Conservative party, it could even be argued that they are putting themselves before their party.

This is a guest post from Rt Hon Liz Saville Roberts, Plaid Cymru’s Westminster Leader and the party’s candidate in Dwyfor Meirionnydd.

This is a guest post from Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (Jenny Jones) a Green Party member of the House of Lords, who has written about her parliamentary question in the House of Lords on ‘Plans to ban or restrict frequent flyer “airmiles” schemes’.

Reducing aviation emissions is one of the big political headaches. People will recycle; catch the train rather than drive; eat less meat and turn the thermostat down a notch, but ask them to stop flying and they don’t want to do it. I haven’t flown for years and have taken a pledge not to fly for the coming year. This meant I had to shelve my plans for a big US road trip. It has not been an easy decision, but given the climate emergency, it seems like the right one.

Given the melting ice caps and record-breaking temperatures around the globe, it is shocking that companies like Virgin are still offering a frequent flyer loyalty scheme that encourages more flights. This has caused the Government’s Committee on Climate Change to recommend that the practice is banned. I will be asking the Minister in the Lords whether they will act on this mildest of reforms.

Instead of giving incentives to fly more often, we should be reducing demand by introducing a frequent flyer tax where we target the rich 15% of the population who take 70% of the flights. Every year people would get an allowance of a single flight and the tax on subsequent flights would increase rapidly the more trips people took. As frequent flyers tend to be the wealthier members of our society, this seems the most egalitarian way of reducing emissions while allowing people to attend those special family events and get togethers that can be so precious.

This would inevitably mean that the Heathrow expansion is cancelled, along with a lot of other airport schemes designed to generate an increased demand for flights. If we are aiming for zero emissions by 2035, then we have to act urgently to curb aviation demand. I know that the Government target is 2050 and that many are still hopeful that the technological solutions of bio-fuels and electric planes can be developed, but we can’t plan on that basis. If the aviation industry is confident it can reduce emissions then get on with it. We can discuss any plans for expansion once they have got the technology working.

Nor can we continue with the illusion that the emissions from planes taking off, or landing, at Heathrow, are not our (UK) emissions. The lack of an international agreement means that greenhouse gases from aviation are not fully counted as part of the Government’s zero emission target. This sleight of hand has got to stop. Climate change could end our entire way of life. We either change rapidly now, or have change forced upon us.