Nasheed, known affectionately as ‘Anni’ amongst his supporters overturned three decades of autocracy under President Gayoom when he became the country’s first elected leader in 2008. Perhaps more importantly he governed as a true statesman. Leading the world on climate change, he pledged to make the low lying country one of the first to go carbon-neutral. Nasheed went on to limit his own power as president, and knocked down the political prisons that had held him and hundreds like him captive.

Ultimately, the way in which ‘Anni’ governed would lead to the abrupt and premature end to his presidency a month ago. His commitment to tackle corruption at every level of public and private life, and to democratise tourism in the Maldives would make him many powerful enemies in the country. The toxic legacy of Gayoom was the network of corrupt and nepotistic individuals, in particular within the judiciary and the police who saw Nasheed as a threat to a once comfortable way of life.

What took place a month ago was an organised, and perfectly executed coup d’état. Vice President Mohammed Waheed took power after Nasheed was forced to resign “at gunpoint” following a police mutiny. Waheed in turn welcomed numerous Gayoom loyalists to his new government, not least the dictator’s daughter as a minister for foreign affairs. Gayoom himself is now set to return to the country from Malaysia in the coming days.

The people of Maldives then, having apparently emerged from “the dregs of dictatorship” once again must face up to intimidation, and police brutality for peaceful and non-violent freedom of expression. Deprived of their elected leader, we are once again witnessing the mobilisation of a popular movement for early elections. Despite political intimidation tens of thousands of ordinary men and women are speaking out for their right to vote in this tiny and truly exceptional island nation.

These calls have been echoed by the European Union and the Commonwealth, with organisations such as Amnesty International now monitoring the situation. There are some promising signs that Mohammed Waheed may indeed call early elections, bowing to popular pressure and the numerous demonstrations in the past month led by Nasheed.

The Maldives then is a small country, but one with a massive principle at stake. ‘Anni’ and the people of the Maldives demonstrated the power of the idea of governance by consent, and did so long before the term ‘Arab Spring’ was ever coined. However the past weeks have shown the true power of the autocratic legacy. Networks of powerful, opportunistic people, who enjoyed the comforts of dictatorship, are unwilling to give them up lightly.

- Justin Kempley

However, if you’re interested in getting involved but haven’t yet, then don’t worry, because this term looks set to be an even more exciting one for CSLD. Politically, we’ll be spending much of it working on our campaign for a scientific approach to drugs policy – look out for a cross-party debate on that soon! We’ll also be holding our annual dinner, the speaker for which will be announced soon on this website; the event is always an exciting one, and past speakers have included some of the country’s most prominent voices in liberal politic – last year’s was none other than our leader in the House of Lords, Lord McNally.

It certainly hasn’t been easy to be both a Lib Dem and a student recently, but CSLD has been bucking the trend. At a time when the party needs our support more than ever and Lib Dem policy is finally being put into practice in government, it’s never been more important – or more difficult – to fight the liberal fight, and CSLD is proud to be doing just that.

- Ieva Lismane, Chair

The Human Rights Act 1998 compels British judges to rule in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights. Although the Act has done much to protect the rights of vulnerable people in society, in recent years it has come under criticism from certain members of the Conservative Party and from the right-wing media who feel that it gives too much power to European judges and results in overly soft sentencing. Notably, David Cameron has publicly supported replacing the act with a ‘British Bill of Rights’, and the current government has pledged to investigate the issue of whether or not to repeal the act.

First to speak in support of the Human Rights Act was Ieva Lismane, current chair of CSLD. Ieva put forward the legal argument in support of the act, pointing out that all it does is allow matters to be settled by British courts rather than European ones, saving vast amounts of time and money. Were we to reject the authority of the European Convention on Human Rights, we would have to leave or renegotiate our terms of membership with the European Union.

Next to speak in opposition to the motion was Dan Bental, a member of the executive of the Cambridge University branch of Amnesty International.  Dan began his speech by pointing out some of the inaccuracies in the cases cited by the speakers from CUCA, and then went on to reject the idea that the Act gave too much power to European Courts – the whole point of the European Convention on Human Rights, he argued, was to safeguard the rights of citizens of the EU, including British citizens, should their national governments attempt to curtail them. No British Bill of Rights, he claimed, could ever provide the same degree of security for our rights.

Last to speak from CSLD was Colin Rosenstiel, the Cambridge City Councillor for Market Ward. Colin’s speech was perhaps one of the best received of the evening – he forcefully, and emotively, ridiculed the notion that there could be specifically ‘British’ rights. Human rights, he argued, belonged to everyone in virtue solely of their humanity, and to withdraw from an international convention on human rights would be to undermine that message. In particular, he challenged CUCA on the cases they had cited of the government being unable to deport criminals back to their countries of birth because doing so would put them at risk of their human rights being violated. He argued that, if we would protect the rights of our own citizens, we ought also to protect the rights of all those living in this country.

Speaking for CUCA were Edward Turnham, David Cowan and Nick Clarke, the Leader of Cambridgeshire County Council. The debate was at times a heated one, at times an intellectual one, but always an engrossing one. At the end of the evening, an informal poll of the audience suggested that CSLD had – narrowly – carried the vote.

Michael Meadowcroft, a former MP for Leeds West, has a wealth of political experience, both in the UK and abroad. Although currently a member of the Lib Dems, from 1989 to 2002 he was the leader of the refounded Liberal Party. He has also served as a senior visiting fellow of the Policy Studies Institute and as Chairman of the Electoral Reform Society – it was in this role that he has helped oversee the transition to democracy in 35 different countries, including Bosnia, Cambodia, the Palestinian Territories and Russia. He recently published a pamphlet, which he discussed at the meeting, entitled ‘Freedom, Liberty and Fairness: Liberal Democrat Values for the 21st Century’ in which he discusses the role of ideology in shaping policy.

At the workshop, Michael spoke about his experience working with and selecting candidates for Leeds city council and discussed new ideas that he had been helping to implement in producing campaign literature for Leeds Liberal Democrats. The thrust of his message was the need to integrate, at a basic level, key liberal values into every piece of literature produced – positions on local issues, he argued, have to be explained by referencing concepts fundamental to our beliefs. He also spoke about what he believes is the widespread support for the principles, if not all the policies, of the Lib Dems, and how the party can be tapping into this support.

During the workshop there was much lively discussion, and the CSLD members in attendance came away with a much better understanding of the thought process that goes into crafting party policy and producing local campaign literature.

During his address, and then afterwards during a question and answer session, Mr Farron was frank and honest in discussing his opinions of current political issues and other politicians – he rebuked those who accused the Lib Dems of lacking political courage, and heaped praise upon Charles Kennedy, the Lib Dem ministers in government and newly-elected leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats Willie Rennie, among others. He spoke at length of his relationship with the media and gave his first-hand account of the life inside the parliamentary party during the coalition negotiations. He also described his vision of the party presidency, and talked about how he saw himself as an important bridge between the local parties and the upper leadership.

Perhaps most importantly though, he discussed numerous ways that the party could be attracting new members and strengthening the support of its current ones – he spoke with great passion about the challenges facing the grass-roots of the party, and how he believed they could be overcome. It seemed that many people came away from the event with the impression that the party was in safe hands – there are many obstacles that will need to be overcome in the near future, but it is clear that the leaders of the party, including Mr Farron, are absolutely up to the task of dealing with them.

Cambridge Student Liberal Democrats then are campaigning for a sensible, rational and comprehensive evidence based approach to drugs policy. We endorse an approach to this free from party political posturing,where policy makers are given the conditions to make the right decisions on drugs classification, shaping policy outcomes for the public good.

We will be doing this over the coming months by holding events, debates anddiscussions open to all students at the university, from across the political spectrum. Detail of these will be out on the CSLD website as and when we have them.

- Justin Kempley, Campaigns Officer