Liberal Democrat Voice

I don’t know about you, but I find it rather irritating when some ‘patriot’ (sic) with a flag tells me what it means to be English. I find it similarly galling to have explained to me what Zionism means and how it relates to my Judaism. These helpful Greens give me their definition of Zionism and tell me that it’s racist – but it’s ok, because there are plenty of ‘good’ Jews who are anti-Zionists. But I still choose to call myself a Zionist.

Fifty years ago, I was starting at City University. It was my second attempt: I had spent an unhappy term at Southampton several years earlier, and as part of my plan to enjoy university more, I decided to join a society at the Freshers’ Fair. I wasn’t a Tory and definitely not a socialist, but I liked the Liberal Party’s views on apartheid and gay rights (not that I had ever consciously met a gay person).

I am a Liberal Democrat because I believe in freedom, fairness, compassion and giving people the power to shape their lives. Those values remain deeply important to me. Yet, after our recent conference in Brighton, I wanted to hear a clearer, more ambitious account of how we would put those values into practice. Tax cuts have their place, but people also need decent housing, reliable public services and security when illness or old age makes them vulnerable.

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On Thursday, Labour’s new vape tax came into effect. Vaping Products Duty charges £2.20 per 10ml of vape liquid. Because VAT is charged on top of the duty, the real cost at the till is £2.64. In practice, an average £3.00 bottle of 10ml liquid will now cost £5.64, an 88% price hike.

A tale of two conference speeches: Ed Davey declared the Lib Dems to be the party of low taxes, and outlined £17bn of tax cuts to Income Tax and Fuel Duty, paid for by making a better deal with the EU, whilst Andy Burnham proposed a National Care Service – with an estimated cost of £18bn according to the Health Foundation. Burnham proposed funding this by adjusting the Triple Lock – although he didn’t explain it that well in the speech.

The Liberal Democrat History Group are pleased to announce that the latest issue of the Journal of Liberal History (issue 132, Autumn 2026) has just been published. The Journal is published quarterly and can be purchased here or you can take out an annual subscription here. The Journal was first published in 1993 as a newsletter. It has come a long way since then and is read by people from all walks of life and all over the world.

The Brazilian presidential elections could presage a major shift in Western Hemispheric politics. At issue are the rabidly pro-Trump conservative policies of Flavio Bolsonaro v. the more independent-minded and left-leaning incumbent President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva (Lula). Flavio is the 45-year-old son of former president Jair Bolsonaro who is serving a 27 year prison sentence for attempting to overthrow the government and conspiring to assassinate President Lula.

Oh, for the days of the British Empire. A protectorate in Egypt and Sudan. British troops at both ends of the Red Sea — Egypt and Suez in the west, Aden and Somaliland in the east. Trade flowed relatively freely between Europe and Asia. Today’s picture is less simple. The immediate problem is the conflict between the Iranian-backed Houthis on one side and the internationally recognised Yemeni government and its Saudi allies on the other. But it is far more complicated than that.

Since September 3, Uber and Wayve have been operating a small number of self-driving cars in London. Passengers can travel in electric Ford Mustang Mach-Es equipped with Wayve’s AI driving system. For now, these are supervised autonomous journeys: a trained, TfL-licensed private-hire driver remains in the vehicle to monitor the system and intervene if necessary — which, incidentally, seems to defeat the point of a driverless vehicle.