Wera Hobhouse condemns "shocking and irresponsible" scale of drilling for oil in protected maritime areas

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The United Kingdom is the world’s worst offender when it comes to letting fossil fuel companies drill in protected areas. 

An investigation coordinated by the Environmental Investigative Forum and European Investigative Collaborations has found that the UK has issued production licences that overlap with 13,500km² of protected areas – an area nearly nine times the size of Greater London. 

Wera Hobhouse, Liberal Democrat MP for Bath and a member of the Commons energy security and net zero select committee, told The Bureau of Investigative Journalism that these findings are "deeply troubling" and that the UK's place on the list is "shocking and irresponsibile": 

"Protected areas exist for a reason, and allowing oil and gas exploration within them completely undermines their purpose, putting irreplaceable natural habitats at risk. 

"The revelations of this investigation must weigh heavily on the government as it considers the Rosebank decision. Rosebank may not sit directly within a protected area, but the pipeline built to serve it cuts through a highly sensitive marine protected area, posing clear risks to our marine environment."

The belligerent youths are back: The sacking of Christine Jardine

When Christine Jardine was sacked as the Liberal Democrats' spokesperson Women and Equalities and on Scotland, some bright spark briefed the press that:

"We are not in the business of dancing to the tune of the Conservatives through symbolic votes and virtue signalling."

Simon Titley used to talk of the "belligerent youths" who surrounded Nick Clegg. Judging by that statement, they're back under Ed Davey.

Christine Jardine was universally regarded as an effective front-bench spokesperson, and to lose her over what has been called "an arcane procedural matter" - she voted against an appalling Conservative amendment she had been told to abstain on - is poor leadership.

Nor was her vote a matter of "virtue signalling", for reasons she explained in her dignified resignation letter:

As you know, my late husband Calum, was bipolar. Several people around me have mental health conditions the amendment dismissed as ‘minor’, and not worthy of support. I could not in good conscience do anything other than vote against another Conservative attempt to remove help from those who need it the most. Regardless of my personal circumstances, as Equalities Spokesperson, this is an equalities issue and I could not let down those who are relying on people in power to speak on their behalf. The expression of support I have had from members of the public, the membership and members across the House, has reassured me the choice I made was right, and I am content with that.

Some of the other Liberal Democrat MPs who voted against the amendment will have had equally personal reasons for doing so. There were eight: Lee Dillon, Andrew George, Rachel Gilmour, Tom Gordon, Wera Hobhouse, Freddie van Mierlo, Manuela Perteghella and Cameron Thomas.

I do wonder why it was so important for the Liberal Democrats not to be seen to oppose punitive action against people who are sick or have a foreign national in the family. Are their plans to change party policy in an unwelcome direction? 

I've no idea, but already I hear of rumblings of discontent in the parliamentary party and in constituency parties over Christine's sacking.

And to the belligerent youth who briefed the press about "virtue signalling"... 

The Conservatives are His Majesty's Opposition. They're meant to have some influence over the agenda of the Commons. If they had a halfway-competent leader, they would have rather more.

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Wera Hobhouse demands to know why she was deported from Hong Kong.

"As we toured the site - not just the blast furnace but the iron ore and coal piles and the continuous casting works and the rod mill and the old coke ovens, shut down a couple of years ago - we began to glean that the workers here were reeling from a terrible shock. Most of them were just discovering, that very day, that Jingye was planning to starve the blast furnaces to death." Ed Conway tries to get to the bottom of what is happening at Scunthorpe.

"Could we see protests akin to the Luddite attacks - this time targeting server farms instead of knitting frames?" John Cassidy discusses how we might survive the AI revolution.

Michael Mechanic and Nina Berman report allegations of abuse at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Florida: "The scientists came out with an announcement that was disturbing, if not surprising. They had excavated 55 sets of remains at Dozier’s Boot Hill cemetery, 5 more than they’d originally identified, and 24 more than were indicated in the school’s official records. Other campus locations remain to be searched."

"The four principal characters have signed on to a suicide mission, driving two truckloads of nitroglycerin across three hundred miles of winding, mountainous, badly paved roads. After a lengthy setup, the movie itself becomes a fuse of indeterminate length. 'You sit there waiting for the theater to explode,” the New York Times critic Bosley Crowther ended his review when The Wages of Fear opened in early 1955 at the posh Paris Theater in Manhattan.'" J. Hoberman reconsiders Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1953 film.

John Lacey traces a pre-historic trading route across Leicestershire.

Wera Hobhouse MP refused entry to Hong Kong to visit grandson

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From the Mail:

A Liberal Democrat MP has been refused entry to Hong Kong to visit her newborn grandson.

Wera Hobhouse, 65, flew to the region, which was a British territory until 1997, on Thursday.

However she was held at airport security and questioned before being put on the first flight home five hours later.

Chinese officers confiscated her passport, and the MP for Bath was asked about her job and the purpose of her visit.

She also had her luggage searched and stabbed and was then taken to a boarding gate by four immigration officers.

 And here is Ed Davey's comment on Bluesky (the Sunday Times story is behind its paywall):

Wera just wanted to visit her son in Hong Kong and meet her baby grandson for the first time. But after a 13-hour flight, the Chinese authorities turned her away – just because she’s a British MP. So heartless. And totally unacceptable.

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— Ed Davey (@eddavey.libdems.org.uk) 12 April 2025 at 19:11

Two further thoughts.

It's only a week since two Labour MPs were barred from entering Israel. Once authoritarian governments see other governments getting away with this behaviour, they are likely to try it themselves. It just shows how wrong Kemi Badenoch was to support the Israeli government: soon it will be a Conservative MP who is affected.

In 2020 Ryan Coetzee, mastermind of the Liberal Democrats' 2015 general election campaign and the Remain effort in the EU referendum, was given a £5m budget to promote the Hong Kong government as part of his work for a PR firm.

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"There is a strand of conservatism that is protectionist and isolationist but for any admirer of Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher to go along with these policies is extraordinary. Trump represents a repudiation of their values on free trade and internationalism." David Gauke explains why Conservatives should have no truck with Trump.

Wera Hobhouse says it's time we had an open and honest conversation about legalising euthanasia.

Despite the fact that governments have spent the last 40 years giving capitalism's loudest voices mostly what they want, such as lower top tax rates and weaker trades unions, in the last 10 years GDP per hour worked has grown by less than one per cent a year. Read Chris Dillow on Labour and the Conservatives' shared belief in "the Scooby-Doo theory of capitalism".

At least 2000 babies were born to Black GIs stationed in Britain during the second world war and a home was created for some of them: Holnicote House in Somerset. Those who grew up there are now telling their stories, reports Steve Rose.

"As a statistician with 20 years of experience in the field of ecology, I recently faced a challenging moment. In August, some colleagues in Canada published a response to a paper that I co-wrote a decade ago, showing that the method my co-authors and I proposed back then is fundamentally flawed." Oliver Gimenez reflects on having a paper of his shown to be wrong.

"Tom Baker was in his fifth full year as the Doctor and was the well-recognised face of the series across the UK. Cleese was also a household name, but for comedy. He had started to build his comedy reputation in the late 1960s and solidified this with his work on the first three series of Monty Python’s Flying Circus between 1969 and 1973 before ascending to comedy royalty with Fawlty Towers, which he created with his then-wife Connie Booth." Oliver J. Wake on the coming together of two giants of Seventies television.

Two per cent of GCSE students study literature by female authors

I saw a tweet by Wera Hobhouse, the Liberal Democrat MP for Bath, in support of the End Sexism in Schools campaign. It said that, "shockingly", only two per cent of GCSE students study literature by female authors.

It is a shocking statistic, and it made me think back to my own schooldays. Sure enough, I didn't study a single woman writer for O level or A level English literature.

Since you ask, here are the books I studied:

O level

• The Merchant of Venice
• An anthology of 20th-century British poets
• Lord of the Flies

You had to study Lord of the Flies for O level in those days - I think there was a law. And there wasn't a single woman poet in that anthology: the poets I liked most in it were Edward Thomas and Edwin Muir. There was no Auden, who is now my favourite British poet of this era, and I don't think there was anyone later than the early Betjeman.

A level

• Hamlet
  
• The Tempest
• Dr Faustus
• Wordsworth's Prelude (Book 1)
• John Donne
• T.S. Eliot (Selected Poems)
• The Rainbow
• The Grapes of Wrath

I think we studied more texts than we needed to because use we had a good teacher and we were a bright class, but there was still no room for a woman writer.

When it came to my MA in Victorian Studies, male writers were in the majority, but we did at least study Felix Holt by George Eliot and Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell.

And it's interesting that, when I was preparing to start the MA course, I read the two Victorian novels I was most ashamed of not having read: Middlemarch and Wuthering Heights.

So all power to End Sexism in Schools. Not because the male writers I studied were bad, though Lord of the Flies was surely overrated in those days, but because one point of studying good literature is to widen your imagination and your sympathies. And you are less likely to do that if you study only writers of one sex.

You can download the full report from the campaign's website.

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Wera Hobhouse explains the need for her private member's bill on sexual harassment at work, which has just become law: "Sexual harassment in the workplace is an epidemic across the UK. Half of all British women and a fifth of men have been sexually harassed at work or place of study. That is over 7 million women who have faced some form of sexual harassment while at work. The Government’s own data indicates that 1.5 million people experience sexual harassment at work from a third party, such as a customer, each year."

Never mind hard-working families, these days we're all obliged to be hard-working customers, says Geoff Reid.

Oliver Wainwright exposes the problems with Thomas Heatherwick's approach to architecture: "Our mental and physical health depends less on being titillated by the design of a façade than by being able to live and work in adequately sized spaces with decent ceiling heights, ample daylight, good ventilation and thermal insulation – something that so much of the building stock in Britain, both old and new, so desperately lacks. "

"Children’s books are almost invisible in the mainstream media. A few years ago, I ran a campaign called #CoverKidsBooks, which found that children’s books received just 3 per cent of nationals newspaper book review space, despite accounting for over 30 per cent of the British book market." S.F. Said believes the UK media needs to do much more to highlight our brilliant children’s books.

"Through Rogers’ prose, you are beckoned to delve into the world of the 'dérive,' a concept cherished by the Situationist International - a practice that involves drifting through urban landscapes in search of the unexpected and the extraordinary. Rogers’ skillful storytelling intertwines the historical, the contemporary, and the speculative, creating a vivid tapestry that immerses readers into the very heart of a city perpetually reinventing itself." Marco Visconti reviews John Rogers' recent book Welcome to New London.

Adam Scovell takes us to the filming locations used in the 1971 folk horror classic The Blood on Satan's Claw.

The Liberal Democrats are the new Dog Lovers' Party

If you’ve spent much time on Facebook or Twitter lately, it’s pretty likely you’ll have seen adverts featuring mournful caged puppies posted by Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

The opposition parties appear to have decided to try to make puppies the next big wedge issue, as they accuse the Conservatives of “giving the green light to puppy smuggling” after the Tories dropped a suite of animal welfare legislation, which included a crackdown on intensive dog breeding practices.

Labour and the Lib Dems have launched petitions urging people to give their details in order to “help stop puppy smuggling”. As with the sewage scandal, senior figures in the opposition parties believe this is an issue that can galvanise the public.

That was the Guardian reporting last week.

As part of this campaign, Tim Farron had already tabled his Pets (Theft and Importation) Bill. This seeks to prevent and punish the theft of dogs below a certain age and deter the unlawful importation of certain animals, including dogs, cats and ferrets.

It's nice to see ferrets being though of.

And the campaign is still going on. Yesterday, Somerset Live quoted Wera Hobhouse, the Lib Dem MP for Bath:

“The Conservative party promised to deliver this Bill in their election manifesto, and the Government even drafted the wording of the new law. Therefore Ministers should have no problems backing it. Conservative MPs cannot break this promise to protect animals from cruel smuggling gangs.

“The Liberal Democrats want to see greater protections for puppies, with criminals who target beloved pets handed harsher punishments.”

There's no doubt about it: the Liberal Democrats are the new Dog Lovers' Party.

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Caroline Lucas, Wera Hobhouse MP and Olivia Blake argue that the Climate and Ecology Bill is our best chance to tackle the climate crisis.

"The root of the asylum controversy in the UK is that our system for determining refugee status works so poorly. It should allow the country quickly to decide who is a refugee and who is not. But it is set up and operated so that most refugees do not have their claims properly recognised in a timely way." David Cantor sets out an alternative to the Illegal Migration Bill.

"From the bin crews in Cambridge Council to Citizens Advice, Dunelm, Atom Bank, some NHS trusts and Sainsburys, the idea is spreading and growing in popularity. Soon it may be the employers who have not tried this who are left behind." Mo Kanjilal asks if it's time we all moved to a four-day week.

"When the historian Nicolas Bell-Romero started a job researching Cambridge University’s past links to transatlantic slavery three years ago, he did not expect to be pilloried in the national press by anonymous dons as 'a "woke activist" with an agenda'." Samira Shackle on the backlash against research into slavery.

Nathan J. Robinson on a Jordan Peterson fan who lost his faith and the lessons we can learn about drawing people away from right-wing ideology.

James Brooke-Smith spent lockdown watching vintage chat shows: "Instead of the torrent of bile and invective and dark mutterings about secret paedophiliac plots orchestrated from pizza parlours in Washington - as the less salubrious corners of the internet would have it - I entered a halcyon world of charm and erudition, wit and glamour."

Wera Hobhouse drops out of Lib Dem leadership race and backs Layla Moran

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Stephen Bush writes on the New Statesman site:

Wera Hobhouse has ended her campaign for the Liberal Democrat leadership and has thrown her weight behind Layla Moran, cementing the Oxford West and Abingdon MP’s status as the candidate to beat.

In a statement to her supporters, the Bath MP said that “we must accept that we are no longer the best vehicle” to deliver her aims of “pulling our party firmly to the centre-left, rebuilding our local government base, securing a progressive alliance, and moving effort and resources to our regions”.

In a coded rebuke to Ed Davey, the party’s deputy leader, MP for Kingston, and Moran’s sole rival for the leadership, Hobhouse warned against becoming a "London-centric" party. Moran described herself as "delighted" to have received Hobhouse’s endorsement.

I am not sure those who fear a London-centric party will see an Oxford-based leader as a huge bonus. In recent days I have seen people noting that the launch of Layla's Build Back Better document featured speakers from London, Oxford and Cambridge - and nowhere else.

And I suspect Wera's campaign was damaged by a rather less coded rebuke to Ed Davey the other day.

Still, this must be a boost for Layla even if it is odd for a party that worships the single transferable vote to end up with just two candidates.

Me? I voted for Ed last time but am definitely Layla curious. She is the Pardoe in this contest, after all.

Hobhouse puts a bangin' donk on it: The new Liberator Songbook

Down at the Liberal Democrat Conference in Brighton, the Glee Club is under way.

At Lord Bonkers' insistence, I am reproducing his foreword to the new Liberator Songbook.

For myself, I am more excited at having contributed a new verse to 'Exmoor Bah T'at'.

Bonkers Hall

Tel. Rutland 7

There was a faint tang of autumn in the air when I walked my estate this morning, so it must be time to contribute a foreword to the new Liberator Songbook.

I write these lines with a heavy heart as I heard only the other day of the sad death of Aretha Franklin. Many have praised her recording of ‘Respect’, but it was all the more remarkable to those of us who knew that she was a lifelong sufferer from dyslexia.

One must move with the times, so let me recall my own involvement in the second summer of love. (I am told that I was involved in the first, but have no memory of it.)

This was the era of house music. Like all successful genres, it developed many varieties. There was acid house, funky house, diva house, country house (particularly popular here in Rutland) and, my own favourite, hob house.

It was named in honour of that great Liberal thinker L.T. Hobhouse, who had already inspired the celebrated single by Madness.

Today we are in the fortunate position of having a member of the Hobhouse clan in the Commons. I am told the family willingness to "put a bangin' donk on it" played no small part in her capture of Bath.

I hope to hear the string trio playing hob house next time I take tea in the city’s celebrated Pump Room.

Enjoy the Glee Club, but when you sing 'Exmoor Bah T'at' please spare a thought for poor Rinka. I always found her charming company and she did not deserve her fate.

If anyone feels moved to pass round a collection for Barnstaple Dogs Home, it would be A Very Nice Gesture.

B.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Well thought of in Golspie

Our week at Bonkers Hall draws to a close as the old boy proves that he still has his finger on the pulse when it comes to the Liberal Democrats (as far as we have one these days).

Sunday

There are those (it is hard to credit) to whom not every Liberal Democrat MP is a household name, so let me give you a few notes upon the slightly less famous ones.

Wera Hobhouse is heir to the family fortune, which is founded on sales of her uncle L.T.’s Liberalism.

Christine Jardine I have found to be a fierce competitor. She once took over the captaincy of my XI when Mike Brearley was called away to conduct an urgent session of psychoanalysis, whereupon she packed the legside field and ordered our fastest bowler to let the batsmen have a barrage of snoot-high deliveries.

Jamie Stone is believed to be well thought of in Golspie.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Earlier this week

• The Beast from the East
• Stilton Man
• Jo Swinson gives Humphrys one up the snoot
• "Dance, Frog Man, dance"
• Gay conversion camps
• Meet Pop Corbyn

Lord Bonkers' Diary: “Why can’t we have a woman as leader?"

When I read this I am reminded that Lord Bonkers was a great supporter of women's suffrage. (But then the first Lady Bonkers would have taken a pretty dim view if he hadn't been.)

Wednesday

“Why can’t we have a woman as leader?” came a question after I spoke at a local Liberal Democrat dinner this evening. I replied that, while I am attracted to the idea, you must first find a woman who is willing to stand. “At one time,” I went on, “we would have engineered a by-election in a safe Liberal seat and got the Wise Woman of Wing to Westminster. She would certainly make a good leader – being Terribly Wise and so forth.” Such matters are not so simply arranged these days, not least because there are no safe Liberal seats any more.

Jo "Gloria" Swinson has ruled herself out this time, settling for the deputy leadership and what she fondly imagines will be a shoo-in next time. Well, we shall see, but "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley," as the former Somerset wicketkeeper Neil Burns once remarked to me.

So instead we must look to our new female Members. Wera Hobhouse is no doubt a relation of my old friend L.T. Hobhouse, with whose latest every young Liberal could once be found curled up. If you want someone Terribly Clever, she’s your girl. Then there is Christine Jardine, who must be a relation of Douglas Jardine, the great England captain from the Bodyline series. His strategy, based upon the insight that Donald Bradman did not like it up the snoot, brought the Ashes home. We could do with similar generalship today.

My eye, however, has fallen upon Layla Morgan – so much so that I have written a song about her on the banjulele. It goes something like this:

Layla,
You've got me on my knees, Layla.
Rumpty tumpty tum, Layla.
Darling won't you ease my worried mind?

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

• The inside story of the fall of Tim Farron
• How Matron keeps herself in gin