South Lincolnshire Liberal Democrats

In Lib Dem Voice on 3 June Helen Flynn urge the readers to come up with "big ideas" to solve our current housing market.

Helen Flynn rightly identifies the issue is not of 'supply and demand': … problems in the housing market … are not necessarily problems of the housing market. Helen Flynn then singles out "distribution" of housing as the main issue: "Some people are occupying a lot more housing than others … others are squeezed out of the market entirely".

To make matters worse Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party is still cowering behind the sofa rather than being a real opposition.

If there was ever a time for the people to stand up and demand to be listened to it is now - and they are.

23rd June is the second anniversary of the European referendum Leavers lied about having a plan and it's now clear that there is no plan for our exit. It's costing us all money, jobs, damaging the NHS and the future for peace and security for our young.

The Home Secretary should make medicinal cannabis available to all who need it, says Christine Jardine, after Sajid Javid granted an emergency licence for Billy Caldwell to be treated with the drug. His supply had been confiscated by customs earlier this week.

Christine is supporting her constituentKaren Gray, whose son Murray has Epilepsy and needs the drug to control his seizures:

Last year I became Chair of the new Federal Training Committee, set up to make sure the Party's training meets our long term needs. I have to admit that delivering training is one of the most fulfilling things I do as a Liberal Democrat. Whilst winning elections is intoxicating, there's nothing quite like bumping into someone months after a training event and hearing them excitedly tell you about the next steps you've inspired them to take.

The Liberal Democrats have many strengths as a party.

But right now we failing in one key area - diversity. We have too few women, too few people without a university education - and far too few BAME members in our party.

This is not the kind of party we want to be.

Together we are going to do something about it but I need you to be bold.

Last but by no means least is where similar discussions in the past have tended to start (and not get much beyond): what rights should registered supporters have compared to fully paid-up members?

Aside from the question of voting rights at conference and in ballots, there's a range of factors to consider.

Attending events: at a local level, this happens frequently already. The non-member deliverer gets invited to the thank you party. The non-member donor is allowed to buy tickets for a fundraising dinner. But for federal conference, in particular, there's an obvious change to make: to allow registered supporters to come and be inspired without having to pay the (rightly) eye-watering rates reserved for non-members who are media, lobbyists and similar at the moment. That same logic can also be applied to across other events, such as state and regional conferences, too.

Party policy working groups: these are mostly, in effect, restricted to party members. But they don't have to be, and indeed including a wider spread of sympathetic expertise in their membership could bring many benefits. Allowing registered supporters to apply to be members of such groups would still keep the safeguards of the current appointment process; it would also open up it more.

Becoming a party candidate: allowing non-members to run as official party candidates would be highly controversial and raise the question about what the point of membership at all is. However, that's not quite the same as saying you have to be a member all the way along the process. In its most restrictive form, some party candidate processes require you to be a member for 12 months before you can go through the approval process (which can take several more months) which then, in turn, means that you can apply to be a candidate.

Parts of that process could be opened up to registered supporters too, such as allowing them to apply for approval and so to learn from that process more about whether or not being a candidate is for them before kicking in the requirement to join at a later stage.

This is also, whisper it quietly, what many local parties already do: they hunt out people who would be great councillors who are not yet members and take them through a process that doesn't make joining the party and waiting months the initial step even though it does involve joining at some point. Having an easier route in than 'pay up and wait a year' has produced many great and dedicated Lib Dem councillors. The rest of the party could learn from what can work so well for local government.

Voting rights: the big one, in many ways. Should voting remain restricted to paid-up members? There's a range of voting rights that can be argued over:

We were so close.

Lib Dem MP Wera Hobhouse has been fighting to make 'upskirting' (taking photographs up a woman's skirt without their consent) a specific criminal offence.

This morning it looked likely that this vile practice would be outlawed after it received backing from the Ministry of Justice, Number 10 and numerous MPs across the house.

This month has been the most successful yet frustrating one we've had for our Brexit campaign.

At the end of May we won a series of victories against the government in the House of Lords.

We defeated the government on the EU Withdrawal Bill a staggering 15 times - thanks to the thousands of supporters who wrote to Peers we identified who would consider supporting us on this.

To make matters worse Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party is still cowering behind the sofa rather than being a real opposition.

If there was ever a time for the people to stand up and demand to be listened to it is now - and they are.

23rd June is the second anniversary of the European referendum Leavers lied about having a plan and it's now clear that there is no plan for our exit. It's costing us all money, jobs, damaging the NHS and the future for peace and security for our young.

When I was little, my grandfather got involved in amateur dramatics. He wasn't very good, but I mention it because the role that I best remember him playing was that of a judge in a play called "Breaking the Code", about the life and trial of Alan Turing. It was important to grandpa because he had always thought of Alan Turing as a national hero. He felt that his intelligence work at Bletchley had turned the tide of the war in the north Atlantic, where my grandfather was an officer on a destroyer. Grandpa felt that, despite his heroism, Alan Turing had been terribly ill used by the British establishment and the judiciary and that what happened to him ultimately brought about his destruction.