Webchat with Ed Davey, Lib Dem leadership candidate, on Tuesday 18 June at 1.30pm

[BojanaMumsnet]

Hello

We’re pleased to announce a webchat with Ed Davey MP - one of the Lib Dem leadership candidates, along with Jo Swinson MP. Ed will be joining us on Tuesday 18 June at 1.30pm.

Ed worked as an economics adviser to Paddy Ashdown, before winning his seat of Kingston and Surbiton in 1997.

In the Coalition Government, Ed began as a Business Minister, laying the groundwork for Shared Parental Leave under Vince Cable. Ed then became the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in 2012 under the Coalition Government, where he says he quadrupled renewable power and made the UK the world leader in offshore wind. After losing his seat in 2015, Ed campaigned for Remain in the EU referendum, and re-gained his seat in 2017.

Since then, Ed says he “has been fighting for us to keep our place in Europe, pushing for a proper response to the Climate Emergency, and helping Liberal Democrats get elected across the country”. For more information about his leadership, please take a look at his campaign website.

Please do join us on Tuesday at 1.30pm, but if you can’t make it on the day, leave your question for Ed on this thread in advance.

As always, please remember our webchat guidelines - one question per user, follow-ups only if there’s time and most questions have been answered and please keep it civil. Also if one topic is overwhelmingly dominating a discussion with a guest, mods might request that people don't continue to post what's effectively the same question or point. Rest assured we will ALWAYS let the guest know that it's an area of concern to multiple users and will encourage them to engage with those questions.

And finally, we’re hoping to confirm a date with Jo Swinson for a webchat too - we’ll let you know when we do.

Many thanks
MNHQ

[onalongsabbatical]

Centre ground parties let the electorate down by making more of their differences than their common ground. I'm fed up with the lot of you. When when when when when will you and TIG and Greens and moderate Labs and possibly even moderate Cons put your differences aside and create one coherent but diverse party that can oppose the two extremes instead of being all these silly little groups in the middle none of which ever command enough support to get into power? I speak as an actual paid-up LibDem, by the way. But very very fed up with this country. The future of politics is co-operation, not bloody in-fighting.

[onalongsabbatical]

Ha! Just saw I was supposed to keep it civil. Hope I stayed on the right side of that rule.

[TresDesolee]

Hello Ed

What’s your opinion on Donald Trump retweeting Katie Hopkins’ attack on Sadiq Khan?

And as a London MP, what do you think should be done about knife crime in the city?

Thanks

[AllHail]

As a constituent, I wrote to you over a year ago asking your thoughts on protecting women’s sex based rights, which are under threat from the rise in transactivism. You replied very politely, stating that you would like to learn more on the issue but that essentially you believed we should be making it much easier to transition between genders.

I was wondering, in the light of Rachel McKinnon winning women’s sporting titles, Karen White and others raping and assaulting women in prison, the increase and invention of “hateful” thoughts as a near-crime by the police, the celebration of a physical attack on lesbian academic Julia Bindel by a trans woman, the recommendation that witnesses in court must be forced to use preferred pronouns and refer to people they know to be men as women, the physical removal of lesbians from a public meeting about diversity, the Mermaids data breach scandal, the striking off of the Webberleys from the GMC register, and of course the endless endless rape threats, threats of violence, death wishes and doxxing towards feminists on social media by trans activists and their allies, have changed your mind at all?

[vivariumvivariumsvivaria]

Hi Ed
Thanks for coming on here - I am, like many women, lost politically, though I usually vote LD.

One of the LD's laudable qualities is the commitment to gender balance in office.

Of course, as a party you are also committed to trans rights - which becomes tricky as the party line is that trans women are women you could land up with a gender balance but few females.

Would you consider a 50:50 parliament with 50% men and 50% transwomen to be a satisfactory gender balance?

[onalongsabbatical]

Not allowed to ask further questions but glad to see the gender questions being asked.

[Peregrina]

Do you now regret going into Coalition with the Tories, instead of going for a Confidence and Supply arrangment as the DUP have done?

[EnolaAlone]

As a Lib Dem member for over 20 years, I was so disappointed to see Lib Dem ministers attitude towards low income households during the Coalition. Voting for the bedroom tax, freezes in benefits, freezes in public sector pay, tuition fees etc was not what I had spent years campaigning for. Do you feel apologetic for any of the things you voted for in Coalition? Would you vote for them again?

[howwudufeel]

I was disappointed when the first thing the LDs did when they got power was run a pointless, expensive referendum on proportionate representative, the only point of which appeared to be to keep Nick Clegg in clover for as long as possible. The next thing you did was raise tuition fees, which to my mind set social mobility back in the UK by decades. Why should I trust you?

[cleanhousewastedlife]

I'd like to ask Ed to talk about his colleague Lynne Featherstone's statement about gender critical feminists (or those with GC views) not being welcome in the Liberal Democrats. This statement has made potentially thousands of women politically homeless. I don't want to push Ed on his own views on trans issues but I'd like to know if he believes that the Lib Dems are aware of how far they have alienated potential supporters. Will he support the views of those who wish to safeguard women and girls, as well as rightly supporting equal rights for trans people, or does he regard the former as being unwelcome in his party?

[TheMarschallin]

Indeed.
So, a Lib Dem peer says that if you don’t believe that transwomen are women the Lib Dem’s don’t want you.

So my question is; does that mean that we are not welcome in the party? Or that you don’t want our votes?

(For full disclosure this made me not vote for you in the local and European elections.)

[BicycleDynamo]

Why should I vote for you when I don't think you'll ever get into power on your own, and the one time you went into coalition it was fairly awful (and enabled the conservatives to impose a great many policies I dislike).

[borntobequiet]

I was an active member of the Liberal Democrats for decades. However I resigned my membership recently because of the blatant misogyny of the LGBT+ Twitter account, which the party seemed to make no attempt to restrain. I emailed the party and eventually got a reply from Jeanne Tarrant which minimised my concerns and emphasised the party’s commitment to gender self ID, which would (and does) result in men claiming to be women, requiring no medical diagnosis, medication or surgery, and women’s safe single sex spaces becoming open to any such person. How is this not injurious and insulting to women? Will the Liberal Democrats continue to support the erosion of the rights of women and girls in this way?

[Doobigetta]

I’d like to let Ed know that I cancelled my membership several months of observing women being prevented from raising any questions about the impact of the GRA upon women’s rights, and after reading Lynne Featherstone’s email saying that gender critical feminists are not welcome.
I would like to know why the party has taken no steps to check the openly threatening and intimidating tweets made from the LibDem LGBT account? The ones referring to attacking TERFs with baseball bats?
And why was Aimee Challenor’s membership approved before the Green Party investigation into Aimee’s conduct in appointing an election agent who had been charged with extremely serious violent offences against a child had been completed?

[NoBaggyPants]

Looking at your voting record, you have:

Generally voted for reducing housing benefit for social tenants deemed to have excess bedrooms (which Labour describe as the "bedroom tax")
Consistently voted against raising welfare benefits at least in line with prices
Almost always voted against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability
Consistently voted for making local councils responsible for helping those in financial need afford their council tax and reducing the amount spent on such support
Almost always voted for a reduction in spending on welfare benefits

Added to that you voted to treble student fees to £9,000, and you've consistently voted against tax increases for the wealthiest, whilst doing nothing to help those on lower incomes.

Beyond Brexit, what do you have to offer anyone on low and middle incomes? Because your record to date is atrocious.

[Oakenbeach]

If there is a General Election this autumn (which I believe is likely) you’ll have a once in a lifetime opportunity to save this country from the disaster of a no-deal Brexit... Please, please don’t blow it.

Boris and Farage will very likely come to an “arrangement”.

If you refuse to do the same with the Greens, you’ll have blown it, and the country will never forgive you.

For instance, at a constituency level, the Brexit Party won in my Suffolk Coastal at the Euro elections by 10%.... yet they polled 12% less than the combined Green, LD and CHUK vote! There are dozens of similar seats! I don’t think you need a formal alliance. You just need to stand down from other seats and agree on a core set of values around Brexit and Environmental matters....

I would “lend” my vote (as someone who voted Tory in 2017) if it meant both stopping Brexit and Corbyn... i believe there are millions like me.

I’m begging you, please will you consider an electoral arrangement with the Greens to stop Brexit.

[Oakenbeach]

Would you consider fighting a forthcoming election on the platform of:

“Revoke Article 50 if:

a) you form a Government, and
b) more than 50% of voters vote for “Remain” parties, (and a referendum if not)

?

It would remove the argument from those saying Revoke is undemocratic, ensure everyones vote counts, including those in Brexit heartlands (increasing “remain”) and may even win you some seats where people had wrongly assumed you didn’t have a chance!

It would also help persuade the many who aren’t engaged with the Brexit psychodrama and don’t especially care whether we remain or leave as long as it goes away and we can get back to normal!

You would be party to deliver that and provide an effective counter to the many in that group who (wrongly) believe we just have to “get on with it” and that a “no-deal” Brexit is the only way to move on.

[Oakenbeach]

PS If you did this, you would totally outflank Labour if they ever did belatedly come to support a second referendum.... and you’d likely retain most or the ordinarily Labour supporters who ‘lent’ you their vote at the Euro elections.

[Coojie33]

Hello Ed. I am a resident of Kingston. I understand that you believe in representing the will of the people and giving people a say in major decisions such as Brexit. However, in Kingston, many people are frightened and feel powerless to protect their homes and neighbourhoods because your LibDem colleagues on the council have agreed to develop 55000 new homes across the borough in just 22 years. Currently, there are about 75000 homes in Kingston. And they have agreed to build premises for 43000 new jobs over the same period.

Your constituents have never been asked for their opinion on the scale of development that is hitting us.

My question is would you support giving Kingston residents a vote on the scale of development of new homes and jobs in the borough over the next 22 years; wouid you offer us a vote on whether vast swathes of the borough should become an "opportunity area" and wouid you offer us a vote on whether we want you to lift protection on the Green Belt and MOL so the council can carry out even more large scale development?

[Coojie33]

Typo - currently are 65000 homes

[Cismyfatarse1]

Aimee Challenor left the Green Party after serious allegations of safeguarding risks because Aimee knew Aimee's Dad was being tried (and was subsequently convicted) of sexual assault of a child.

Why has Aimee Challenor had such a warm welcome from the Liberal Democrats? Is this because Aimee is a transwoman? How are you ensuring that history does not repeat itself?

[birdsdestiny]

Can you explain why the liberal democrats are opposing age verification for porn.

[GrumpyCatLives]

Hello Ed.

A local Lib Dem candidate called me a "bigot" after I (a lesbian) said that I didn't want to sleep with anyone with a penis.

Do you have any comment to make on this?

[ginghambox]

Why are you trying to disrespect a legitimate vote to leave the eu.

[lonelyplanetmum]

Thank you for coming on here today and for all the work you have been doing. Thank you also to the Greens for with the LibDems being the only voice speaking up for the forgotten half of the electorate.

We were lied to so overtly during the dishonest referendum campaigning. Although it seems unbelievable, it is also beyond doubt that some campaigners use of social media (via firms such as Cambridge Analytica) was funded by Right wing American political funders.

Why is this overseas interference in our domestic politics not seen as more sinister?
What steps would a LibDem government take to ensure that democracy is not circumvented by foriegn interference?
Would the LibDems endorse new legislation to restrict overt, knowing misrepresentation of facts by domestic politicians?