Your Latest Briefing from the Liberal Democrats. | |
 | 2026 will be another crucial year for British politics and the country. With elections coming up in May across much of England, in Scotland, and in Wales, we’re starting the year with new ideas, new energy, and new hope.
The Labour Government may not have the ambition and leadership needed to take our country forward, but we’ve got the bold solutions needed to address our greatest challenges - read on for our latest announcements on ending the A&E crisis.
And while Nigel Farage and Reform UK talk our country down, we’re standing up for our British values and institutions, taking the fight to those who wish to divide us and bring Trump’s America to our shores.
Watch our latest Party Political Broadcast, which aired in England and Wales earlier this week, and share it with your friends and family to spread Ed Davey’s message of hope: | | | Share on: | | If you want to make a difference in 2026, join the Liberal Democrats today and help us protect the country we love. | | | | | Already a member?
Please contact [email protected] so we can check your records. | |
 | This month, Ed Davey launched our campaign to end the A&E corridor crisis at a press conference in London.
30,000 people are waiting over 12 hours in A&E every week, with thousands stuck on trolleys in hospital corridors for hours on end, in pain and discomfort, and without privacy or dignity; many people are even dying there.
To resolve the corridor crisis, we must stop so many people being forced to go into A&E in the first place.
Our plans would ensure everyone can see a GP within seven days, or 24 hours if urgent, and we’d provide more care and support for people at home, so they don’t have to be stuck in hospital when they’re well enough to leave.
We’d also help thousands more people leave hospital, by investing in social care beds and step down care, and by supporting carers and hospices.
All this would be paid for by scrapping the government’s agreement with Donald Trump to hike medicine costs, which will cost £3bn a year. | | | | | Please sign our campaign to end the A&E crisis: | | | |
 | Boosting our military through Defence Bonds | We’ve announced our new policy to issue Defence Bonds to boost our military spending and reduce our reliance on the US.
We face a once-in-a-generation security threat - with Donald Trump undermining NATO and Vladimir Putin continuing his brutal war in Ukraine. Despite this, the Labour Government is failing to invest in the military we need to deter aggressors and protect the country.
Under our plans, members of the public could buy Defence Bonds - as a secure way of investing their savings while helping to boost the UK’s national defence. Institutional investors could also purchase these bonds.
It would give members of the public an opportunity to invest directly in Britain’s defence, raising up to £20 billion to modernise our military and help us to reach 3% of GDP spent on defence by 2030 at the latest. | | | |
 On 27 January, we marked Holocaust Memorial Day to remember the six million murdered Jewish men, women and children, and the millions of others killed under Nazi persecution.
It is essential we honour the survivors and renew our commitment to building a country where Jewish people - and all people - can live, worship and gather in safety. | |
 | Social media companies are exposing children to addictive algorithms and harmful content online - and earning massive profits from it. Parents and children deserve clearer safeguards and better protection.
This month, we launched a new campaign to introduce a film-style age-rating for online platforms to protect children online and empower parents to understand the risks of the online world.
This would ban harmful social media for under 16s and rate platforms hosting extreme content 18+. However, unlike a blanket ban, it would still allow access to useful sites like educational websites and family messaging services which would be rated 13, or indeed kept universal for all. | | | Please sign our campaign to keep children safe online: | | | |
 | We’re off to a flying start in 2026 already, winning our first council by-elections.
This month, we’re celebrating a gain from the Greens in the Cotswolds and a gain from the Conservatives in East Dunbartonshire - showing that we continue to take the fight to all parties and win!
Congratulations to those elected and their teams! Whether or not you won this time, thank you to everyone who stood and helped our campaigns, building our momentum and letting local communities know they are heard. | |
Update from the LGA Liberal Democrat Group Liberal Democrat councillors and councils are fighting for local communities across the country. Here are just some of the latest examples:
🔶 Lib Dem-run Somerset council’s funding is supporting 5,000 people with alcohol dependency and 2,000 with opiate/cocaine addictions and their families. This policy of prevention also reduces stress on adult’s and children’s social care, homelessness services, the health service and criminal justice system.
🔶 Lib Dem-run South Cambridgeshire District Council have set up a ground-breaking scheme using renewable energy to “future proof” waste collections.
🔶 Lib Dem council groups played a key role in pressuring the Government to drop their mandatory digital ID plans this month. Lib Dems on the East Riding of Yorkshire Council successfully passed a motion calling on the Prime Minister to scrap the costly, illiberal, unwanted and unworkable scheme and to invest in local government services instead.
🔶 The Lib Dem team in Birmingham are holding the Labour-led council to account ahead of May elections. Labour’s financial mismanagement has led to two Section 114 notices (signalling it cannot meet its financial obligations), the Oracle IT system disaster, and the bin strike.
Lib Dem councillors and campaigners have been working hard for residents, fighting for the re-opening of a local swimming pool, forcing a u-turn on the sale of a local park, and reporting thousands of pieces of casework.
And residents are recognising this - in October, we gained a council seat from Labour in Moseley with a majority of over 500, sending a clear message that people want change and see us as the party to deliver it. | |
 Remembering Jim Wallace
It is with great sadness that we announce the loss of Jim Wallace, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, the former Deputy First Minister of Scotland and a towering figure of modern Scottish liberalism.
Jim was elected to Parliament in 1983 as MP for Orkney & Shetland, became leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats in 1992, and then MSP for Orkney and Deputy First Minister from 1999 - 2005. He joined the House of Lords in 2007.
Throughout his life and career, Jim was an inspiration and mentor to many, and leaves behind a giant legacy as one of the most significant Scottish politicians of his generation. | |
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