Best for Britain Tactical Voting Dashboard

We are delighted to announce that we have just launched the Best for Britain Tactical Voting Dashboard.

This shows you which candidate in your area has the best chance of winning against an extreme Brexit candidate and publishes the key statistics for your seat.

Here's what you can do:

1. ⌨️ Put your postcode or constituency name into the Tactical Voting Dashboard
2. 👀 Check which candidate Best for Britain recommends
3. 📱Share the results on Facebook and Twitter (if you do, you’ll see a great graph showing how we can beat extreme Brexit in your constituency). Encourage friends to do the same!

No matter where you live, sharing this dashboard could have a real impact on who is elected to parliament. Make sure your voice is heard.

Thanks for your support,

Eloise Todd CEO,

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Best for Britain
Copyright © 2017 Best for Britain, All rights reserved.
Our postal address is: 11 Manchester Square London W1U 3PW

Petitioning Theresa May to Keep the Ban on Fox Hunting

National Secular Society - What do the main parties have to say on secular issues?

The Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat¹ parties have all released their manifestos for the General Election. Read our analysis of what they say on issues from equality to human rights, Islamist extremism and education.

We'll continue to update this article as the other parties publish their manifestos.

Read full post: National Secular Society - What do the main parties have to say on secular issues?

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1. Now includes Green manifesto

Labour manifesto 2017

It seems Labour got caught short with the announcement of the general election, although all the infighting can't have helped. It's always seemed logical to me that a manifesto should be something you keep up to date & revise regularly. In any case, they did finally manage to get the manifesto out before the originally-announced end of May (for an election date of 8th June!), so here it is, all 126 pages of it:

THE LABOUR PARTY MANIFESTO 2017

A few remarks:

• Yes, there it is costed. There's a document that specifically does this.
• Many will be puzzled by the subtitle in the Negotiating Brexit section: "Labour accepts the referendum result and a Labour government will put the national interest first", since it is generally accepted by everyone who has studied the question that the two are incompatible.
• There is also a promise to lower the voting age to 16. Not a squeak about Brits living abroad.

Anyway, read it yourself, make up your mind. Sorry, no audio, BSL or big print version.

Liberal Democrat manifesto 2017

The Liberal Democrat manifesto was officially launched on 17th May and seems to have been pretty well received on the whole, not just for the content but also for the clear language and clarity of presentation. You can download it here. A variety of formats is available:

1. The potted web version;
2. the full 100 page effort, with important background info for each section, clear explanations of policy and how it will be funded;
3. a 12 page "easy read" version in large print which doesn't take the reader for an idiot. Can be used as a checklist in conjunction with (2);
4. an audio version, for the sight-impaired;
5. a BSL version for the deaf;
6. a braille version

There's supposed to be a PDF on the costing of all this, but it doesn't work. Apart from that, whether you're a LibDem or not: this, guys, is how it should be done. Read and learn.

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Disclaimer: I am a member of the Liberal Democrat party but I try to be unbiased.

That being said, the below is absolutely not at all unbiased and I make no apology for it, as the LibDems are financed solely by personal donations. No big corporations, no unions, just people.

Donate to the LibDems

LibDems: The Nasty Party is back – Tory manifesto will hit families from cradle to grave

With the announcement of the Conservative manifesto today, Theresa May has shown her true colours. I’ve scarcely seen a colder, more mean-spirited agenda in my entire career.

There’s no doubt about it: the Nasty party is back. The Tories are hitting families from cradle to grave by snatching school lunches from children and homes from the elderly.

This isn’t hyperbole – the policies speak for themselves...

The full text of former LibDem leader Nick Clegg's take on the universally-decried Tory manifesto is here: The Nasty Party is back – Tory manifesto will hit families from cradle to grave

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Some of Theresa May's claims concerning the manifesto are also examined here at Factcheck.org

A copy of the 88-page manifesto in PDF format can be found here.

No Hate Speech Movement

"Hate speech, as defined by the Council of Europe, covers all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify racial hatred, xenophobia, anti-Semitism or other forms of hatred based on intolerance, including: intolerance expressed by aggressive nationalism and ethnocentrism, discrimination and hostility against minorities, migrants and people of immigrant origin."

(Don't read the comments to this on YouTube: they are of course mostly ignorant hate from the very bullies the movement seeks to reeducate).

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Objectives of the No Hate campaign

• To raise awareness about hate speech online and its risks for democracy and for individual young people, and promoting media and Internet literacy;
• To support young people in standing up for human rights, online and offline;
• To reduce the levels of acceptance of online hate speech;
• To mobilise, train and network online youth activists for human rights;
• To map hate speech online and develop tools for constructive responses;
• To support and show solidarity to people and groups targeted by hate speech online;
• To advocate for the development and consensus on European policy instruments combating hate speech;
• To develop youth participation and citizenship online.

The official site of the No Hate Speech Movement is here.

You'll also find the latest posts on their site in the FEEDS section of this blog.

Happy Europe Day

Europe Day, held on 9 May every year, celebrates peace and unity in Europe. The date marks the anniversary of the historical 'Schuman declaration'. At a speech in Paris in 1950, Robert Schuman, the then French foreign minister, set out his idea for a new form of political cooperation in Europe, which would make war between Europe’s nations unthinkable.

His vision was to create a European institution that would pool and manage coal and steel production. A treaty creating such a body was signed just under a year later. Schuman’s proposal is now considered to be the beginning of what became the European Union.

Best for Britain – Do what is Best for Britain

I believe young people have been the biggest losers of elections in our recent history. Unless attitudes towards voting change, young people are set to lose big again in this upcoming election.

The ‘snap’ has been prompted by Brexit. Young people voted overwhelmingly to stay in the European Union. People aged 16-17 even campaigned, alas unsuccessfully, to have their say last June. Since the referendum, we have gone from soft Brexit, to hard Brexit, to something approaching extreme Brexit. All I know is that very little concern has been shown for the interests of the 71% of 18-25 year olds who voted to Remain. We are worried about our job prospects being squandered. We are worried about key human rights being protected. We are worried about losing programmes like Erasmus+. All in all, we are worried about our futures...

Read the rest here: Best for Britain – Do what is Best for Britain

FAZ - EU Commission fears failure of negotiations

FAZ - EU Commission fears failure of negotiations

You can find Jeremy Cliffe's The Economist blog on German politics here: Kaffeeklatsch