Tom Brake MP: I’m running out of words to describe what a mess this Government is in. Chaos, dissaray, shambles, omnishambles.

Bluntly, the resignations of David Davis and Boris Johnson on Monday makes it clear: this government is up shit creek without a paddle.

It is obvious to all – Brexiters and Remainers alike – that Theresa May cannot deliver on Brexit.

This is most important issue in a generation and the government has failed.

There’s only one option for them now. Hand Brexit back over to the people to have the final say on the Brexit deal, and include the option to remain in the EU.

My fellow Lib Dem MPs and I will be calling on the government to extend ‘Article 50’ (or delay the day we’re set to leave the EU) today.

But to pile the pressure on, I need your help.

I want 100k people to sign our petition.

Please sign our petition to Exit from Brexit today.

And ask just one friend. Perhaps its someone at work, a fellow parent at the school gates or a neighbour. We all know someone who might sign if only we asked them.

You can find the petition here: https://www.libdems.org.uk/brexit

You are invited to this professionally led walk is in memory of the Pankhursts – Emmeline, Christabel and Sylvia – fierce campaigners, resolute radicals, recalling their city centre haunts and outlining their struggle.

Starting at St Ann’s Church at 17:30, the tour will last approximately 2 hours.

To RSVP please go here: https://www.libdems.org.uk/clairehalliwell/the_pankhursts_suffragette_city_tour

Vince Cable explores how we can end the housing crisis through pragmatic steps to create more affordable homes, protect those who are renting, and help people get on the property ladder.

“At the centre of the last budget was a pledge to build 300,000 UK houses a year to address the ‘housing crisis’.

We were taken back to the days when a post-war Conservative Government, under Churchill, was elected with this level of ambition, and more than succeeded.

Or to the interwar National Government when, under the much-maligned Neville Chamberlain, when there was a similar level of ambition and achievement in the aftermath of, and as an antidote to, the Great Crash.

More recently, in 1969, when I was embarking on a political career as a councillor in Glasgow, a record level of 378,000 homes were built.   Large scale house building was then the template of successful local government.

Today, there is a significantly larger number of people per home available.

Yet in the 2010 post-crisis nadir only 133,000 homes were built during the year. And even as the economy comes out the other side, there were just 178,360 in 2016/17.

Brexit now threatens development rates again.  Already two-thirds of small and medium sized construction firms are struggling to hire bricklayers and carpenters, 10% more than was the case even three months ago.  There is a worsening crisis in construction recruitment which threatens any political aspiration to build more homes.

An estimated 240,000 to 300,000 units per year are needed to keep up with the rate of household formation but even that figure excludes a lot of hidden demand – in the form of young people living with their parents, for example.

This historic failure of governments – of all stripes – to stimulate housing supply at anything like the levels needed to meet demand is at the root of a great deal of social, and particularly inter-generational, injustice in the country today.

So while some of the solutions are necessarily technical, we should keep in mind throughout the end game. An affordable, secure home for all – and in particular for young people, to whom it is presently out of reach.

I want to set out how we could return to the levels of house building last seen two or three generations ago; and how a Lib Dem, mixed-economy approach, of public and private sector, can deliver it.”

Despite widespread support for the anti-upskirting Bill, it was single-handedly blocked by Tory MP Christopher Chope.

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.

Last week 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.

However, last Friday in Parliament, the Tory MP Sir Christopher Chope used an antiquated piece of Commons procedure to block the Bill from proceeding, amid cries of “shame” from outraged MPs. His actions meant that the Bill could not even be debated.

We’re disappointed, and angry on behalf of all the women for whom this meant so much…but completely unsurprised this happened.

Arch-Brexiteer Chope has repeatedly been on the wrong side of history. He has voted for the minimum wage to be abolished, against same-sex marriage, and in favour of fox hunting. This is not the first private members bill he has blocked – in 2014 he blocked a Lib Dem Bill which would have banned revenge evictions by private landlords, and in 2015 he blocked a Bill to restrict hospital parking chargers imposed on carers.

The Upskirting Bill will come back to Parliament in June, but there would be nothing to prevent Chope or other out of touch Tory MPs from pulling the same stunt again.

We need to make sure this bill passes.

In order to do so we need to make everybody aware of what Chope did today, and show him exactly how the public feels about his shameful actions.

We are exposing Chope’s actions to thousands more through social media ads. You can donate to our campaign here: libdems.org.uk/upskirting-donate

In a speech entitled ‘Capitalism in Crisis’, Liberal Democrat Leader Vince Cable explains how a modern, liberal approach can help capitalism save itself.

He explores some of the serious problems facing capitalism today, and how these issues have provoked reactions from the extremes of the political spectrum. Common sense reform is necessary to curb the worst excesses of capitalism.

“Scarcely a day goes by without a scandal erupting around greedy or bullying bosses, pilfered pension funds, business tax dodging, chaotic private train operators, rewards for failure, bankers’ bonuses, price gouging or exploitation of gig workers, zero hours contract employees or modern slaves.

The public appears to want more nationalisation, more regulation and higher taxes on business.

Populist politicians on the left, like Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders in the USA, get a respectful hearing at business conferences. Leading business spokespeople and gurus preach contrition, restraint and self-flagellation.

There is a palpable sense of capitalism being in crisis or, at least, facing a crisis of confidence.

Although it does not explain everything, the financial crisis of a decade ago played an important part in puncturing the confidence generated by the collapse of Communism two decades earlier confidence that the capitalist model, the liberalisation of markets and the ‘animal spirits’ of entrepreneurs, could be relied upon to generate an ongoing, inexorable rise in living standards.

This view was epitomised by Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History” thesis now the subject of universal mockery but taken very seriously at the time that liberal democracy and the market economy had conclusively and for all time settled the ideological debate.

Instead, financial markets proved to be highly unstable and prone to excess.