at the same time, working together with the liberal democrats, very difficult because the liberal democratsup to all that austerity as well. i think it's really important, here and now, for the brexit question. beyond that, i have my doubts. a lot of people are saying, are they a viable political group? a lot of comparisons to a 1983 and the sdp. what are the parallels? i think it's very different for different time. i think the one parallel is our appalling electoral system which makes any kind of break—up almost impossible for any newcomer. most of the electorate say they would love to have more choices, would you like more parties?, to have more choices, would you like more parties? , yes. to have more choices, would you like more parties?, yes. you had you kept doing extremely well and not having a single mp. you have the greens, but on the home, their support is spread thinly. they never get the mps they deserve. until we get a proportional representation system, but all of the votes are added up, parties win a seat according to how the boat they get, i think it is really difficult to

people who identify as liberal democrats, 2/3 are white. 2/3 of self identifiy liberal democrats are rly significant number of conservative democrats and whites are barely a fluorality. plurality. so it's interesting to see that. in liberal democrats tend to be overwhelmingly heavily white. we talk about all these different groups, how they're going to renookt different candidates in 2020. we do a lot demographic break downs. how that's changed and how that breaks down. something to keep in mind and speaking of 2020. up next. bernie sanders his fund raising is pretty impressive. mind blowing, might a better word. i think he might still be counting the cash. what it could mean for his many other opponents. y other opponents. with expedia, i saved when i added a hotel to our flight. so even when she grows up, she'll never outgrow the memory of our adventure. unlock savings when you add select hotels to your existing trip. only with expedia. select hotels to your existing trip. uh uh - i deliverberty the news around here. ♪ sources say liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you

and i think the liberal democrats, shall we work together?t. you can argue the whole 52—48, but british voters did not vote for a destination —— might guess, stop brexit. theresa may should have the courage to on the table and say, my deal or remain, and vote for a destination. british people, yes, they voted, but there is no final place. they can‘t even define exit during the referendum, what it is. thank you, thank you, everybody. sorry we didn‘t get someone from the independent group. but thank you. still to come on the programme... pope francis has called for concrete measures to tackle what he called the evil of child sexual abuse by priests. there is a conference going on in rome this morning. we‘ll speak to a man who was sexually abused by two catholic priests and has been calling for years for the church to take the issue seriously. and we speak exclusively to a dad of two who helped save the lives of men, women and children in syria as part of a volunteer rescue force known as the white helmets. now he and his family have been rehome

vince cable, the leader of the liberal democrats.home from egypt, where she held talks with some eu leaders at an international summit. mrs may will update mps on the latest negotiations tomorrow and she insisted today that it was still possible to reach deal by the 29th march — when the uk is set to leave the eu. i held good meetings with mr tusk, mr conti, i held good meetings with mr tusk, mrconti, mrs i held good meetings with mr tusk, mr conti, mrs merkel and others. we will be working on legally binding assurances that the uk parliament needs in relation to the backstop but in all of my conversations with my fellow leaders here, both here and in recent days, is a real determination to find a way through which allows the uk to leave the eu and orderly way with a deal. the extension to article 50, a delay in this process, doesn't deliver a decision in parliament. it doesn't deliver a deal. what it does is precisely what the word says. we haveit precisely what the word says. we have it within our grasp. i had a real sense from the

for moderates these ministers and indeed the liberal democrats have all been overshadowed by the new independent group who seem to have little time for their established competitors from the political center. all of these putative parties seem to instruct a moral tale even in the social media age treating about a new political force is somewhat easier than creating one however if ever there was a moment for political baldness then this might be the one the political establishment at westminster is fracturing as never before whether you are to break the mold of british politics or just wanting to secure as you want the exit or one thing like the new back to party to stop or deal with europe or indeed our king for scottish independence within europe that we few more propitious opportunities than ny this could be a time when fortune does indeed favor the brief. and so for alex and me and all the show it's good bye for now i i will see you next week. for the. trots asked strong ten years ago. what happened now is so what's called deep globalization i'm sure they caused it but that's what

and you people, the democrats and liberals, are worried about $5.7 billion for a wall? that doesn't make sense. host: if someone gets a detention bed, what services are they entitled to? guest: there are laws in the united states about obligations you have to humanely detain someone. whichare some cases in there is overcrowding in federal detention facilities that are geared more towards immigration. takete contractors will detainees -- immigrants who are detained when there are limits. there could be many conversations that occur about government spending. when we talk about the wall and the $5.7 million for the wall, it should be noted that for fiscal 2019, the trump administration only requested about $1.6 billion for the wall. that was to go to 66 miles of wall in texas. where these funding negotiations seem to have ended up, slightly less than that number for 10 miles fewer. this was the white house's initial request. then we had this dramatic jump up to $5.7 billion. people were questioning whether that $5.7 million is really necessary. -- $5.6 billion is really n

will this independent group merge with the liberal democrats?ob: that is what they are looking for, and i think the answer is they do not know. the liberal democrats have said they would like to cooperate. there has been lots of talking about this behind the scenes, lots of meetings. quite possibly what you would see is a nonaggression pact with liberal democrats and this independent group, whatever it decided to call itself, where they would not stand against each other in seats. that ultimately could lead to some kind of merger down the road. that happened the last time this happened in british politics. -- which in itself was a nonaggression pact. that is definitely one way this goes. the honest answer is at this stage, nobody knows how this will play out, including the people involved. francine: are we expecting any more mps to quit and join this party? dean: yes, yes, we are. we do not know who they are. anyone could come up with a list of likely suspects. i can even see one walking across in front of me right now, but nobody quite knows. t

potentially, the liberal democrats disband that match your mps decide, we will no longer be liberal democratsf developing their own personality and a new political context. we have a lot in common with the the opinion polls are com pletely with the the opinion polls are completely meaningless. we had a party at which i was about 25%. the pose have the liberal cats on 5—7%, and the in up to about 50%. it is com pletely and the in up to about 50%. it is completely meaningless, they are not a party. this is absurd that people are speculating that way. the fact is, we have a lot in common with them. we have a very strong infrastructure, good organisation. they have enthusiasm, a lot of media attention, perfectly deserved. we will seek to work with them, i'm optimistic this will happen inside and outside parliament. so, the lib dems are going nowhere? i'm not ruling anything out. we are where we are, we have our strengths, which are, we have our strengths, which are enduring. we will establish what how in practice we actually work together. i'm confident it will work. just because you're not rulin

you so much as you probably know i voted against president trump i'm a liberal democrat i worked hard to see that hillary clinton would get elected but i'm very much opposed to efforts to remove this president who i voted against by unlawful means whether by invoking the twenty fifth amendment to the constitution which was written for presidents who are incapacitated by medical or psychiatric reasons or whether by impeachment that requires high crimes and misdemeanors so i'm very much in favor not of president trump but in favor of the constitution now when you say that the you're in in favor of the constitution and the civil liberties rather than motivated by any personal sympathies for president trump do people believe you are is it a hard case to make in this day and age in the united states it's a very hard case to make and people either don't believe me or don't care many friends who are a long long time friends have refused to have anything to do with me they won't go to events that i met because they think i'm taking trump's side you know it reminds me of when i was a young man

more liberal than most democrats. jacob javits, the last of the new york liberal republicans would stay on the senate until 1980. margaret chase smith, publican senator from maine, deck -- declaration of conscience against joseph mccarthy. charles mathias, a republican senator from maryland. basically every liberal or moderate republican in the senate, and even a couple of conservatives, robert griffin, charles caddell, a short-term interim senator. goodell had been hoping for a full term if he could get elected. haynesworth goes down to defeat, 55-45. nixon is astonished. he assumed this would be a safe thing. the fortas confirmation was a one-off. the fortas confirmation change the rules of the game. they would be more willing to look at supreme court nominees with a degree of skepticism. as we will see over the next several weeks. that pattern continues at several points in the future. nixon at this point has two options. just to conclude this is a democratically controlled senate, republicans are not the majority.

welcome back joining me now to go through some of the week's top stories is former liberal democrat memberof parliament lembit who pick them but. let's go to this dangerous man story this is a big story often the canary jeremy coleman is definitely a dangerous arrow twice one mailed you know what this is about i'll tell you as a book by my uncle tom it's called dangerous hero ruthless plot for power get this it turns out jeremy coleman wants to be prime minister and that's what's the knots he likes going camping and the constant daily mail serialisation we have fifteen pages of it fifty pages of extract i mean it would be that he has a seasoned politician what does it mean that is he has a distressing lack of he's found no pleasure in medieval towns how can he be prime minister of absolute it's worse than the option he can't tell own brand beans from tesco all kinds of there's some telephone calls and a lot of end of a little tenuously useless. and dangerous tourism a set of the dispatch works dangerous at the same time he's usually these dangerous the useless and he's messy if you look at

lot of the philosophy was called walks and others then took on so if you go on that's typical liberal democrat view of this that what they're going to believe you are just happy with is. to say i declare that they are often ok well people are already saying there should be appeal for try to get it repaired i wonder whether to resume we'll be talking about vandalism she should do because if we're going to reach out to the rest of the world if the chinese are coming here just to look at that we're going to need everything we can get after bracks et levodopa well then paul one we had for a month or a day feel about the power of office protest something my next guest is known around the world for one of the founders of the human league and having seventeen is politically judge music that satirize the reagan era is now most famously remembered in a song we don't need this fascist groove banned by the b.b.c. due to concerns it libeled raygun a new collection of heaven seventeen's work played there when the virgin years is out on the twenty nine the much more often where joins me now and welcome to g

welcome back join me now as we go through some of the week's top stories as broadcaster a former liberal democrat member of parliament lembit oh big lebed welcome back official nasa climate change report today perhaps showing that we're going down the completely wrong route to save the earth secret flights a u.k. veteran of afghanistan was on board one as any good news or does nothing was this huge of. ok well this is pretty important to middle east i reports exclusive british army permitted shooting of civilians in iraq and afghanistan palm beach or we can talk about climate change and so forth this is potentially a scandal it turns out that spotters that means civilian afghan residents who weren't armed or even implied as being armed or active in the military against the british army were legitimate targets of two we have well one excel just as he witnessed the fatal shootings of significant numbers of civilians and bouncer and he described as a killing spree there does seem to be quite a lot of evidence of that use for him to injury men allege their further they and their fellow soldiers in so

some franchise and your party vince cable leader the liberal democrat said he was going to be a centristlike mackerel i'm not active anymore action i'm not active anymore well vince needs to take a leaf out of this book then ten deaths associated with these yellow vests thousand soldiers two thousand injured at least now what's happened here is the yellow vests have been telling the police when they go to demonstrate have not said if this is what we get the police violence is what we get we're not even to tell you we're going to demonstrate now the local french are getting angry and this is looking really nasty and pretty much why do you think it's going to be written very much because it's not in the headlines because micron's are kind of friend we have to keep them on our side during breaks it may not be doing a great job of that and snow is interesting is talking about places like gaza because it's far away and we think we know who the enemy is there well let's go to the british backed and occupied territories which really israeli occupied territories of the morning stole us from morn

the metro reports on liberal democrat leader sir vince cable saying a ‘significant‘ number of labourotting to desert their parties and join with him in an attempt to halt brexit. the financial times reports on comments from the business secretary that nissan's decision to cancel production of a new model at its sunderland plant is "a warning sign" of the damage that could be wrought on the car sector by a no—deal brexit. the times says that ministers are considering withdrawing a £60 million package of support for nissan after it broke its pledge to build the latest version of the x—trail suv in britain. the guardian's lead story is about campaigners calling on the government to intervene urgently over the cost of a cystic fibrosis drug. the i has the same story. it says children are being denied a life—extending drug after the manufacturer set the price at £105,000 per patient per year. and the daily telegraph has a call from the the chief secretary to the treasury liz truss for women to be less "squeamish" about making money. the headline here, nissan faces losing made‘s £60 millio

it does have the support of the liberal democrats as well. 16, save 322 against 361i. one of those signatories is lord hannay — the uk's permanent representative to the european economic community between 1985—1990. what was the purpose of the letter, what would you hoping to achieve by it? several of us are independent members of the house of lords. we collectively feel very worried about the way things are going, its implications for britain's influence in the world. also worried about the constitutional situation in this country. since we are of one mind, without it might be useful to speak up, but that is all it is. we have no role in government or opposition. you will be aware that some people reading it would say, you're hardly impartial because you helped build the eu. i work for a lot of british prime ministers from macmillan to blair, which is quite a long time. everything one of them believe that oui’ everything one of them believe that our places in the european community. i worked loyally for them, and! community. i worked loyally

arthel: let's look at the annual gallup polls that shows more democrats than ever identify as liberalsrats political ideologies at the end of 2018, you get 51% liberal, 34% moderate and 13% conservative. so, again, based on those results who has the better chance of gaining tractions in the crowded field of democratic candidates and which of the two senators warren or klobauchar has better chance to unseat the president. it's all about gaining traction and having power? >> i would say without a doubt amy klobuchar of all candidates have announced so far, amy klobachar the best shot at taking president trump but in terms -- as you pointed out with the gallu pu poll, in terms of increasing liberal democratic party, voters, they hear things like let's, you know, medicare for all and they love that idea and, of course, it sounds great, the problem is during that winds up abolishing private health insurance and that's a real problem in -- among more moderate general election voters. so -- arthel: taper that i believe. >> good luck with that. the problem is when you throw out big ideas like

democrats are at olds over impeachment, make no mistake, nancy pelosi wants to old the white house account. impeachment and the mueller probe being something slightly stralt. -- separate 6. robertye tom s the liberal billionaire is pushing democrats to push. and can speaker pelosi keep off the leftnd keep this chairman focused right now in terms of the investigations? dan: i think she said she can until we see what the mueller like. looks at this point i'd say all bets are off depending on what's in the report. i think the points raise is an important one. what is the overall strategy? is it, there a sense, to flood the zone with investigations? that can get difficult. in other words each of these chairmen has some latitude on what to do and they're going to be aggressive. speaker pelosi has to think about, ok, what are we really trying to accomplish with this who are we really trying to go after? what questions do we really want to answer? those are strategic questions that i think the democrats have to answernd that i suspect the speaker is quite mind of of but nonetheless it's not going to be an easy job of management. katty: one of the things i've heard from pelosi repeatedly is this notion of

liberal moderate democrats. he isn't thrilled about fortis as a nominee but says he's willing to go along with john's plan. so it looks from johnson's mind 1968 as if this is a done deal. fortis has been nominated. thornberry is the associate. the three most powerful members of the senate johnson believes are already on board and willing to support both confirmations. this is just going to be a done deal. that hes problem is essentially lost a decent amount of power by the fact that he's not running for reelection. he hasn't conceptualized that and he will learn it very quickly in the summer of 1968. two things happen almost a daily. the first is that 19 republican senators sign on to a public ,tatement prepared by this man robert griffin who was a republican senator from michigan which comes to be known as the round-robin. and which articulates a view that will reappear in american life in 2016. the samessentially argument that mitch mcconnell makes against the garlands nomination which is that look, we have a

he did not vote with the most liberal democratic senators that were running for president.r president. we asked each of the candidate why they voted the way they did. we got a reply from kamala's staff telling us she could not support increase funding for homeland security which she sees it dysfunctional and stronger over site. senator harris was concerned of immigration families who committed no crime. and on debate, senator brown and klobachar, you can say they share senator harris concerns. that does not sound like a bernie sanders' answer, does it? bernie sanders' pitch was not i will fight with the best compromise that we can reach with republicans in congress. senator sanders gave this statement. "while i have concerns about this aspects of this bill, i will vote for it because i can't turn my backs on contract workers who would be forced again to work without pay. for these federal employees and their families going without pay is an agent of cruelty which i can't support. i am concerned of the millions of people who would be denied to access to government service."

we got these liberal democrats introduces their new green deal, alexandria occasio-cortez leading that fight over this plan when you hear what nancy pelosi is calling it, the green dream would that divide feasibly the democratic party on capitol hill >> in theory it could divide a lot of lawmakers. it's a resolution. they are not introducing this as legislation heading to the floor, at least not any time soon. it's important to under, democrats generally are on the same place when i comes to tissue of climate change being important and something that needs to be dealt with. i think the differences will be over tactics and ambition and practicality. there's plenty of democrats especially many elected to the house in 2018 and swing districts who will look at this and say it's great to be aspirational but we need to be political and from a policy perspective practical so we don't turn off voter and make them think in a sense we're kokky on what we want to do about this. it depends on whether or not the democrats that are for this want to press this or whether they are trying to set the to

even though he was from a conservative state, he he took liberal positions. he was a democratic activist on constitutional issues. he is critical of haynesworth as well. he is worried that from the court, the result will be a string of anti-civil rights decisions. the striking thing about the haynesworth vote is not the kennedy opposable. ition. it is we have all of these red dots on the rollcall chart. these are senate republicans who cast votes against haynesworth's confirmation. were we have conservative democrats and liberal republicans. republican to be elected to the u.s. senate from new jersey. that was in 1972, a very liberal republican. javits, the last of the new york liberal republicans would stay on the senate until 1980. margaret chase smith, publican senator from maine, deck relation of conscience against joseph mccarthy. charles mathias, a republican senator from maryland. basically every liberal or moderate republican in the senate, and even a couple of conservatives, robert griffin, , a short-terml interim senator. the father -- goodell had been hoping for a ful

be secure economically, and they need to be able to prosper. >> woodruff: karine, the flipde liberal democrats don't want their party leaders to work together with the president. >> well, ty want democrats, in particular in the house now that it's the majory, to hold this president accountable. that's one of the reasons that we took back tus ho so that's really important. that looks in very different ways. that's looking at the mueller report. it's also lookinat childre being separated at the border. puerto rico, 3,000 people died. but they also want toee democrats moving the country forward, right? and they've de that with voting rights and dealing with corruption, and so these are things they actuallt to see, but we need politicians os the othee to also be in there with us, too. >> woodruff: all right. we'll have chance to talk about all this again later tonight when we'eard what the president has to say. thank you so much, karine jean-pierre, chris buskirk. thank you. woodruff: for a roundup of today's other major headlines,na here's amnz. >> nawaz: in the non state of the union news this d

problems than those who find themselves left of centre, not even labour voters, but labour, liberal democratsiticians would push the situation back to the public, there will be another election referendum, but theresa may is saying, we will not do that. let's look inside the sunday times. such a sad story. a lot of this. the effects of social media on mental health. indeed, there's been a lot of discussion about how young, vulnerable teenagers suffering with lots of concerns and worries, mental health concerns, or essentially finding notjust a health concerns, or essentially finding not just a way of support but finding avenues that encourage their eating disorders, their problems. this is a specific article, notjust problems. this is a specific article, not just about problems. this is a specific article, notjust about how dangerous it can be at the indications, a young girl, so we what's tragically killed herself but her parents found themselves in a situation they were unable to look at any of her online messaging because of data protection laws. it was only on the morning of her inquest t

two years ago schultz would have been considered a liberal democrat. democrat party is dead at this point. it's a socialist party. they are socialists. liz: we have a quinnipiac poll. a majority of californians do not want medicare for all. they say no to it. major news on sears. a judge approving the sale of most of of sears assets to that hedge fund controlled by the sears chairman for $5.2 billion. maybe sears and thousands of jobs could be saved. we are staying on that story for you. ford investing $100 million adding jobs at its chicago plant. ford says it's part of its plan to restructure three luxury suvs and stop making taurus, the car. hbc is buying sun trust bank. it will create the country's 6th largest bank. the deadline and variety reporting woody allen is suing amazon after amazon canceled his last film and his multi film deal after old allegations resurfaced that allen sexually assaulted his adopted daughter dylan. military members now deserting maduro after the embattled regime blocking food and humanitarian aid into the country. democra

look at the midterms, a win for democratic moderates in the competitive races and primaries. the moderates beat the liberals. i don't think the democratic party has lurched to the left. the people, some candidates are. we will have a big old debate about this. because there's such a strong feeling among democrats that donald trump has to go, i think electability is going to be the single most important issue for democrats in the primaries and caucuses, not ideological purity. i think you will see a lot of people doing what we have seen in the last 24, 36 hours, trying to stake out a middle ground while elizabeth warren and bernie sanders and others go very far to the left. >> on that, we have breaking news, including the music now, just now, bernie sanders, the independent senator from the state of vermont, announced he is running for president again. he just made this announcement on vermont public radio. i believe we have that sound. let's listen to it. >> by just operating inside the beltway. first of all, i wanted to let the people of the state of vermont know about this first. what i promise to do is,

hoped that a progressive constitution could catapult germany from authoritarian monarchy into liberal democratic modernity and those reformers included people like the sociologist max baber second reason blood was flowing in german streets the country was riven by social unrest and it was hoped that universal suffrage the proportional representation could help to heal the social divisions. yet as progressive as it was as far ahead of its time as it was it didn't manage to inoculate this society in a way that guarantees democracy to flourish what are some of the lessons that we've learned since well one reason is to birth defects they were referred to as fatal flaws in the piece of the constitution itself one of them was proportional representation it gave rise to small splinter parties on the far left on the far right polarization as we know today and this is one of the lessons can make a country and the parliament ungovernable that happened secondly very important article forty eight it was an emergency powers provision it allowed the president to declare a national emergency and override the l

the metro reports that the liberal democrat leader sir vince cable says a "significant" number of labour their parties and join with him in an attempt to halt brexit. the financial times reports on comments from the business secretary that nissan 5 decision on comments from the business at its sunderland plant is a warning sign of the damage that could be wrought on the car sector by a no—deal brexit. the guardian's lead story is about campaigners calling on the government to intervene urgently over the cost of a cystic fibrosis drug. the 'i" has the same story. it says children are being denied a life—extending drug after the manufacturer set the price at £105,000 per patient per year. and the daily telegraph has a call from the the chief secretary from the chief secretary to the treasury, liz truss, for women to be less squeamish about making money. lots for us to discuss, but let's start with the very sad news on the front of the daily mail. it has broken this evening, the wreckage from the plane which disappeared with the footballer ben mike, and the pilot, dave ibbotson on board. it

. >> the media everywhere is liberal 85 percent are registered to democrats. most are left of liberal democrat. then disappears faster than taylor swift's boyfriends. don't expect the emperor to tell you about it. the fox is known for eating peoples lunches. >> sean hannity and will eat smollet lunch every single second he will eat smollet lunch every single second spirit the president of the united states lead his lunch. >> i'm getting hungry. and then so smollet saw the media for what it was, suckers and i kind of admire it but if you're only mad he was used by us as fodder while missing the fact he made you look like a dumb ass then you truly are a lemon. [laughter] these moments have been piling up and they were driven by the agenda and the profit maker is always conflict. >> even those homophobic slurs you know, how serious this crime is right now. >> in real life smollet is black and gay which could be a motivation for the hate crime spirit just as people who wear hats that say mag a i don't think it is put out there that this is a possible hate crime. >

as a liberal democrat i believe political parties and groups with similar aims should work together.

much for that well thank you so much as you probably know i voted against president trump i'm a liberal democrat i worked hard to see that hillary clinton would get elected but i'm very much opposed to efforts to remove this president who i voted against by unlawful means whether by invoking the twenty fifth amendment to the constitution which was written for presidents who are incapacitated by medical or psychiatric reasons or whether by impeachment that requires high crimes and misdemeanors so i'm very much in favor not of president trump but in favor of the constitution now when you say that the you're in in favor of the constitution and the civil liberties rather than motivated by any personal sympathies for president trump do people believe you are on is a hard case to make in this day and age of the united states it's a very hard case to make and people either don't believe me or don't care many friends who are a long long time friends have refused to have anything to do with me they won't go to events that i met because they think i'm taking trump's side you know it reminds me of when i w

the right wing parties and when the election they can form a coalition the people of piety the liberal democrats feel the latinos and their new fire right parties both they can form out for lucian and they are very very. strict and they have a different approach to the cattle and question and probably they will be. calling for. they would be reactivating their one hundred fifty five article of the constitution which means taking over and they've gotten that to outearn i mean and have direct rule of that's the only one from from spain and in the case of a conviction for the that elite and are now on trial in the case of that ok probably stationary the penitentiary benefits would be different with a fire with a right. government in bottle in parliament thomas thank you so much for bringing us up to date on my last quest in madrid well that budget vote will take place a day after the trial of twelve catalan separatist leaders began in the spanish capital madrid as jaime was pointing out the defendants face charges of rebellion and sedition over their roles in the two thousand and seventeen independ

. >> i also wanted to touch on the at wasnew deal t announced this week by liberal democrats. there is a very sweeping resolution and one of t most sweeping elements is it is calling for the u.s. to convert to 100% clean renewable energy sources by 2030. about 60 democrats, both in the house andon senate, have signe to this. where do you stand on that bill? >> well, i stabi on th as well, and i think it ta, make a powerful statement where we stand in the country to ween ourselves off fossil fuels and investment dramatically in renewable energy. we are all too aware that we may bein approac and faster than we originally thought, this tipping point, where it may be toote to deal with the problems of climate change. and so there isea asense of urgency among democrats that's reflected in this green new deal. and you can see the contrast between the parties in theee new deal, which is, you know, a very aggressive effort to move ourselves in the direction of renewable energy, and a gop which is ready to confirm an oil and gas lobbyist. so in this area, more than perhaps any other, ca

but a liberal democrat peer said anyone missing lessons to demonstrate should not be punished.nister understand that we need a clear guarantee that those students who decide to take part in action on friday on the basis of a personal decision, conscientiously made, will not be punished or suffer any retribution as a result? as i said in my opening answer, it will be a matter for the head teacher of those schools to consider whether it is an authorised absence or not. the strike is an encouraging example of young people is active citizenship and civic engagement which has implications which could be explored in citizenship education classes. i do not accept that taking time off school in the middle of the firm is useful for children. all of the evidence suggests that time off school affects their education. we have made tremendous progress in attendance levels over the last ten years and in any way validating the sort of behaviour does not help them. can my honourable friend explained why it is right that children should go on strike during term time at a cost to the taxpayer an

but a liberal democrat said fgm was on the rise and prosecutions remained rare.of a mother who did this to her daughter ten days ago. for the protection is needed to ensure that young girls do not have to go through this brutal life changing and sometimes life—threatening trauma of female genital mutilation. since 2015, we have brought in a number of measures to protect women and girls from female genital mutilation. protecting and bringing in a number of offences, including failing to protect a girl from fgm is now an effect. —— is now an offence. we have introduced several protection part is for fgm and a mandatory reporting duty to known cases in under 185. mps across the house welcomed the news that the government would find time for the bill, but there was fury that it had been stopped in its tracks by sir christopher chope. its repetition by objecting important bills proceed time. —— proceeds him. but today, i am not using that time honourable when addressing our colleague, as honourable implies principle. and the member of christ's church displayed no such

it didn't go too far, ultimately, had to merge with the liberals to become the liberal democrats, andat deal. there is an opportunity, though, depending on which inclinations ultimately prevail, for the independent group, because they are talking about occupying the middle ground. joining up with the liberal party. if that happens, then there is a consolidation in the middle ground, and that could take them forward. how much forward, we will have to wait and see, because there seems to be a common ground, not only in occupying the middle ground, but also in most of them being remainers. in fact, all of them, if i am not mistaken, are remainers. joining up with the liberal party, which is 100% remainers, would i think pose an interesting proposition. we are certainly into new ground as far as world politics is concerned. where i do believe that if there is a failed brexit process, i think more people could join this group, and there could be a bigger rump than what there is today. we will leave that group for the time being, because we need to get through the next few weeks before we e

the liberal democrat lady pinnock said the government had set up a libraries task force in 2016 and wass change lives for the better. and that includes reference to attacking social isolation, saving the nhs an estimated £30 million a year. i wonder if the noble minister can tell the house how libraries can improve lives, when in the last year alone, £30 million last was spent on local libraries and further 127 libraries were closed? —— 30 million pounds less. they do strengthen communities, they become community hubs and we agree that we should make sure that we monitor the role that local authorities have in providing a comprehensive and efficient library service. it is not helpfuljust to look at the stray numbers of openings and closings, sometimes it's the right thing to close library and produce a better library that's more centralised, albeit one that's in partnership with other local community areas. local authorities have their budget by 60%. it is natural that this offers an easy way of saving money and simply to say that to outsource responsibilities to the local authorities i

much for that well thank you so much as you probably know i voted against president trump i'm a liberal democrat i worked hard to see that hillary clinton would get elected but i'm very much opposed to efforts to remove this president who i voted against by on lawful means whether by invoking the twenty fifth amendment to the constitution which was written for presidents who are incapacitated by medical or psychiatric reasons or whether by impeachment that requires high crimes and misdemeanors so i'm very much in favor not of president trump but in favor of the constitution now when you say that you are in in favor of the constitution and the civil liberties rather done motivated by any personal sympathy.