Ukraine: are we serious?
I visited Ukraine in 2019, travelling to Kyiv and Odessa and I saw a country under pressure but setting itself proudly apart from Russia. Ukraine’s reputation was for corruption, but even as challenges remain, Ukraine’s reputation today is for courage, innovation and suffering. Media interest fluctuates but the suffering is continuous. Here we are again, at another media milestone. Two years since pre-meditated but miscalculated Russian invasion. Ukrainians may take only passing interest in this milestone, focused as they must be on living as best they can.
A question I ponder is our will to support from further West but still in Europe, and more sharply considered against the very real chance of another Trump presidency. Do we want Ukraine to win, or just not lose, or just not lose too badly? Are we prepared to give the means to win? It’s hard now to think back to the counter-offensive that fizzled out last summer. With hindsight it was always a stretch. Even my vaguest Joint Services Staff College recollections tell me that an operation like that would have been the most enormous risk without air superiority, of which Ukraine had none. As an ex-Royal Engineer I’d have been pretty sceptical of getting to Crimea in one piece.
What if this was our fight and we were pleading with a Trump to stand by its commitments? In NATO, an attack on one is an attack on all. Ukraine is not in NATO, but I think this is our fight, because it is not just for Ukraine. This is about whether we have what it takes to defend our way of life. I think this is part of what the outgoing Chief of the General Staff meant with his recent talk of being ready to raise a citizen army. Does it seem such a stretch of the imagination? How did people feel in the mid 1930’s?
Post-80s governments balanced their books using many budgets but on none more so than Defence. The post-1989 peace dividend was cashed many times over and the results are all too clear in the outdated and poorly supported kit our under-strength and undervalued armed services personnel use today. If we want to defend ourselves comprehensively then we can’t keep paying third party, fire and theft insurance. With our allies, let’s give Ukraine what it needs to win and take our own defence more seriously.
For Dorset’s Future
Metaphors, something-or-other-gate, and slogans litter the path we’ve been travelling for these last five years. Oven-ready deals, Truss-o-nomics, party gate to tractor dating, all stick in my mind. Those same five long and turbulent years mark the time since the previous local elections on the formation of Dorset Unitary Council. So, while wanting to see the back of many tainted slogans, I unashamedly offer a new one: “For Dorset’s Future”. It’s on the front cover of this magazine and it’s what Liberal Democrats have in mind and offer as our candidates stand before and for you, the voters, and your decision on 2 May.
Here in 2024 in North Dorset and all across the county, we have a chance to turn a corner from all that turbulence and misfortune. This will start locally at first, to make new choices about how we will start to solve our challenges, to dig ourselves out of the hole we have sat in for so long and follow the path out of the woods, to use just a couple more metaphors. Then later, it will be the national question.
Thursday 2nd May 2024 is your opportunity to change the direction of decision-making for Dorset’s future. It is our chance to select new Town and Parish councillors as well as Dorset councillors. As someone not standing for election on 2 May, I thank all candidates in all parties for offering their time and energy to serve their communities.
Yet turnout was only around 40% across all local elections in North Dorset in 2019, and that was at a time of heightened political awareness and division. That level of engagement is a concern as the importance of local government has increased. Councils made big cuts to meet their basic statutory requirements and even these are under threat. What have we seen from Dorset Council except the easy efficiencies of redundancies and selling off assets that come with any increasingly centralised bureaucracy. These cuts are accompanied by increasing remoteness and, from our point of view here in the North, a lack of focus on our needs. It has to be time for a change in local government.
Lib Dems work hard and smart to get a fair deal for local people. On 2 May take back control (to coin a phrase), use your voter power to choose, and vote Lib Dem, for a fair deal and for Dorset’s Future.
New teeth for OFWAT
During the recent general election campaign I used some of the time to continue campaigning to stop sewage dumping into our North Dorset rivers. I visited Gillingham wastewater treatment centre, I met people responsible for operating the site and to see some of the recent improvements made by Wessex Water. As expected, the operations and maintenance teams were friendly, highly knowledgeable and demonstrated dedication, pride and thorough professionalism. Some of the conversation with the external relations team at the visit explored discussions of the overall business model for the water companies and the water industry more generally. I explained Liberal Democrats’ and my strong opposition to the operating model for the industry. Although the external relations team thought my criticism unfair, we agreed to differ.
Last week I took part in the water industry regulator, OFWAT’s public question and answer session where OFWAT answered questions on their judgements of the 16 water companies’ plans for the next five years. Plans to stop sewage dumping and the costs to customers for doing so formed almost the entire content of the session. Considering OFWAT’s many years of toothless oversight I asked how we could trust OFWAT, and the Environment Agency, to really hold the water companies’ feet to the fire. OFWAT is convinced that it can now take more aggressive action against the companies, policing extravagant bonuses and ensuring we don’t pay twice for investment we should already have had. OFWAT judged Wessex Water’s business plan to be inadequate and has reduced the value of Wessex Water’s proposed programme to reflect its lack of ambition, and its performance last year. It was reassuring to see that our bills for the next five years will reduce by £12 excluding inflation, but disappointing that Wessex Water has set itself such a low bar. The average bill rises across the other companies will be £94. OFWAT will allow Wessex Water to raise bills if it can demonstrate that it can deliver sewage pollution prevention projects in the next five years. Wessex Water has time now to re-submit its proposals and the final plan will be set on 19 December this year. We can all comment on OFWAT’s latest ruling by 28 August by going to its website.
Wessex Water’s performance has slipped, and it will need all of us to be vigilant to ensure we get value for money while the company meets its obligations to eliminate sewage dumping. Campaign groups were well represented in pressing OFWAT for more, and Liberal Democrats will continue to be among them.
Facts not fiction
It was summer 1992 and I was adjutant of a Territorial Army regiment in Southampton. One of the regiment’s sergeants suggested that we put a team into the football world cup that year. “No”, I hear you say, “there was no football world cup in 1992, this must be fiction”, but it was fact. My regiment formed the England team for the championships. We trained a bit, got in a minibus and drove to Her Majesty’s Prison Haslar in Portsmouth – the venue. For the rest of that day, we played a series of internationals against talented teams formed from asylum seekers of many nations, each playing in teams wearing their parent country’s colours. England played Brazil in the final and we won. The victorious England team went home, but the others stayed at Her Majesty’s pleasure, awaiting Home Office decisions on their asylum claims.
Many eventually did stay in this country. Moving on to their new lives in the UK, to make their way as we all do, to do what they can and play their part. Thinking back to that happy and unusual afternoon, I feel unhappy in contrast at events of the last few weeks on our streets and in far too many minds. At the Gillingham and Shaftesbury show a couple of weeks ago, my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I asked visitors what was the one thing they wanted to get off their chests. For many the answer was “immigration”, including from a group of teenagers who stopped to offer cheeky chat as well their views. Whatever the age, whether young or old, I found the most difficult views were not just about “immigration” but “immigrants”. Them and us. Lots of statements offered as facts were simply untrue. Many got their news from TikTok or ‘X’ (Twitter) and ignored mainstream media. Simon Hoare (a surprisingly frequent visitor to our stand at the show) wrote about the need for better education in the previous edition. He is right, but it’s more than that. We all need to understand the facts and keep talking about them, rather than shying away from a difficult subject.
Here are some facts: the 2022 Values Study by Kings College London found that 55% of British people thought immigration had a positive effect on UK development; last year, asylum seekers were less than 1 in 12 of the non-EU immigrants to Britain; the vast majority are therefore people who pay for visas to work or study; immigrants commit crime at the same rate as Britons; immigration grows the economy and has little or no effect on wages; immigrants are net contributors to the NHS. Let’s be proud of this country, and for good reasons.
The Social Housing Crisis in the UK
What is social housing and why is it important?
Social housing is a type of affordable housing that is provided by the government or non-profit organisations to people who are unable to access the private housing market. Social housing is important because it offers security, stability, and quality of life to low-income households, vulnerable groups, and key workers. Social housing also contributes to social cohesion, community development, and economic growth.
Social housing was important to me. It put a roof over my head and gave my father security when he needed to re-start our lives in Northern Ireland after my mother’s death.
What are the causes and consequences of the social housing shortage?
The UK is facing a severe shortage of social housing, with an estimated gap of 3.8 million homes. The main causes of this shortage are the lack of public investment, the sell-off of council houses, the deregulation of the private rented sector, and the rising demand due to population growth, migration, and homelessness. The consequences of the social housing shortage are devastating for millions of people who are forced to live in overcrowded, substandard, or insecure accommodation, or who are left homeless. The social housing shortage also has negative impacts on health, education, employment, and the environment.
What are the possible solutions to the social housing shortage?
The solution to the social housing shortage requires a radical shift in the government's housing policy and a massive increase in the supply of social housing. Some of the possible solutions are: increasing the public funding for social housing, building more council houses and community-led housing, regulating the private rented sector and introducing rent controls, reforming the planning system and land use, and promoting mixed-tenure and sustainable development. These solutions would not only address the social housing shortage, but also improve the quality, affordability, and accessibility of housing for everyone.
What are the political perspectives on social housing?
The Labour Party has pledged to build at least 150,000 social homes a year by the end of the decade, with 100,000 of them being council houses. The Labour Party also promises to end the right to buy scheme, which has reduced the stock of social housing by over a million since 1980, and to give more rights and protections to private renters. The Conservative Party, on the other hand, has failed to deliver on its previous promises to build more social housing. In 2015, the Conservative Party pledged to build 200,000 starter homes for first-time buyers, but none of them were built. In 2017, the Conservative Party pledged to build a new generation of council houses, but only 6,287 were built in 2018-19. The Conservative Party also plans to extend the right to buy scheme to housing association tenants, which could further deplete the social housing stock.
Appetite for change
We are what we eat. Our diet defines us. If I take that metaphor and apply it to our political consumption for the last decade and a half, it feels to me that we were living unhealthily. First, we had a crash diet in 2010. By 2015 there were some signs that we were getting fitter. Then instead of knuckling down, we decided on an extreme change of lifestyle. I do of course mean Brexit and the accompanying national nervous breakdown. Then, with our health undermined, we got Covid and suffered even more. Instead of getting a chance to recover we were conned into some fad diets by charlatans who took us to the brink. In May we decided to head for rehab, emerging a few weeks later on 5 July with a new direction under new leaders but without a recipe.
The lack of a plan was concerning but we knew we couldn’t keep living as we were for so long. We had a feeling it would be hard, but now it seems that as well as a healthier diet, we must also pay more for the gym and, instead of those previous short-lived New Year resolutions, this time we must keep going to the gym most days, indefinitely. For a nation of highly processed chicken nugget eaters, we need some positivity if we’re going to convert to oily fish, nuts and beans for the foreseeable future. In the last couple of weeks, it feels that instead of the promise of steadily improving health and wellness, our new Labour life coaches are offering thin gruel, cold showers and regular weigh-ins. Where is the encouragement? Where is the hope?
The truth is that the new Labour dieticians want us to be absolutely clear who is to blame for our terrible health and lousy diet and they won’t stop ramming this message home until they are convinced we can repeat it in our sleep. Then, sometime next year, probably around the next comprehensive spending review in the Spring, the plan will be revealed for how we will get to long-term health and renewed national vim and vigour. I am all for that but, in the meantime, please can we understand the recipe better and what is in the meal plan. We need to feel that the better days aren’t so far ahead that we lose heart and make us think about drifting back to the charlatans and their pot noodles. Could the Labour life coaches also listen to us rather than tell us how to live? I am prepared to start the journey with salt in my porridge, but a realistic promise of a little honey in time will make the experience more palatable.
Water pressure
As part of my volunteer Water Guardian duties, last weekend Mrs Jackson and I took part in the national “Water Blitz” citizen science survey of the nation’s water bodies. Our test kits were issued by Dorset Wildlife Trust and we measured nitrate and phosphate levels in the stretch of the Stour I patrol in Gillingham. I hope to see the full picture across the country very soon, but the single measurement we took last weekend by the railway bridge near the sewage treatment works showed high levels of nitrate and moderate levels of phosphate. Taken at that location, after a few dry days, these levels are likely to come from agriculture, and sewage treatment. The shame is that I expected these sorts of readings as that is the state of our general expectations of our rivers these days.
Last week there was a well-meaning summit of water industry players who discussed how to restore river health and increase customer trust. In the same week the water industry lobby organisation, Water UK, issued a statement on the same subject of restoring trust. The main recommendations of both were to expose data to greater scrutiny and set up yet another body to independently measure sewage overflows into our rivers and seas. I suspect that we have long held the view that water companies marking their own homework using dubious data has generally been a bad idea, proven by the many scandals of sewage dumping, dry pumping, and poor corporate behaviour. There is work here to restore trust, but it’s much more likely to come from rigorous, joined up oversight and transparency by a rigorous and joined up independent regulatory system.
The Labour government tasked Jon Cunliffe to lead the Independent Water Commission to review and recommend the way forward for regulating the industry. Cunliffe will report in June this year but the National Audit Office submitted their homework on this subject ahead of time on 24 April. The NAO’s report pointed to a range of problems. The Environment Agency issues regulations and targets for rivers and water bodies but takes no account of the costs and impact on customers. OFWAT regulates water companies individually, but no one is taking a national view of water supply or a complete view of sewerage assets. Given that there are more than 30 massive schemes to be delivered in the next ten years for new reservoirs and strategic water transfer schemes costing tens of billions of pounds, someone needs to look at that big picture and make sure we and the environment get the value we need.
While regulators are under the microscope elsewhere for being too strong and standing in the way of growth, the water industry regulators badly need a shakeup as they are not nearly strong enough. Liberal Democrats have been campaigning for this for years and we want to see OFWAT replaced by a Clean Water Authority that also deals with the wider regulatory problems above. Now at last it seems that change may be coming. Water pressure works.
Progress, not Populism
Conservatives managed our decline for the last ten years and people were finally fed up of it, nationally and locally. People wanted change and they voted for it in 2024, relegating the source of their pain to the role of noisy and frustrated spectators. We also now face the headwinds created in the wider world by bad actors like Presidents Putin, Xi and Trump, compounding the homespun decisions and actions of the last ten years.
Greatest of these homegrown headwinds is Brexit. There were many good reasons to dislike the EU and to have voted to leave but there were no excuses for leaving in the shocking way we did. With no planning and with political posturing trumping good sense, we agreed almost the very hardest Brexit deal possible. North Dorset’s current MP wrote last month about buyer’s remorse, but in the realm of Brexit there is little realistic chance of sending anything back to the shop anytime soon and his party was the shopkeeper of our current pain. Our economic fortunes will continue to be held back by that deal unless something changes.
So, the way forward must be to negotiate, and we have started to see the very early glimmers of what cooperation can achieve. Through the very modest improvements negotiated last month, the UK and EU created the absolute basics of a useful deal – a micro-deal. It should help our farmers a bit, companies with European supply chains too, and it might just re-ignite the enthusiasm of small companies to start exporting again. As a bonus, perhaps there will also soon be a deal to allow young people to travel and work. Probably the most important result though was to establish a new willingness and practical process for future negotiations. Let’s be honest with ourselves: Brexit is not done, and it never will be. The nearest market is always the most important market, so we will always be negotiating with the EU in some way.
We need to get used to the give and take of negotiation, which brings me to another harsh reality. While the micro-trade deal is a win for pragmatism, it stands in stark contrast to the desires of Conservative and Reform populists. Populists are less concerned by evidence, facts and stable judgement. Populists think in terms of them and us. Populists are comfortable with confrontation and uncomfortable with consensus. For populists, the micro-deal was a treacherous sell-out, but I have a question. How many populists does it take to change a lightbulb? The answer is none. They’re all too busy sitting in the dark listening to Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage moaning about how bad the last one was. There will be little real world progress if fantasists get back into power.
Spoiler alert: Liberal Democrats want to go further and be bolder in our relationship with the EU. The quickest path to a stronger economy is to improve our deals with the EU. The UK has much to offer and a huge amount to gain. Our near-term recommendations include creating a bespoke customs deal with the EU that really gets the economy going. Come on Labour, what are you afraid of?
