The LDV Friday Five: 27 January 2012

By Helen Duffett | Published 27th January 2012 - 5:00 pm

It’s Friday. It’s five o’clock. Here’s a fistful of lists that sum up the LDV week:

5 most-read stories on LDV this week

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Opinion: Memo to Jeremy Browne MP

By Paul Reynolds | Published 27th January 2012 - 4:30 pm

Dear Jeremy,

Thank you very much for your typically robust performance on BBC TV’s Question Time last night. However I wish to counsel you against using the prospect of war with Iran as a vehicle to demonstrate your resolve, and the Party’s new-found ‘establishment’ credentials. Your political future, and maybe even your personal freedom, are at stake here….

In the debate you not only expressed your support for blockade-type unilateral sanctions, that do not have UN support, but also you gave the distinct impression that you were in favour of the UK joining a major war against Iran.

The recent rise …

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Question: Big or small government? Answer: effective

By Henry Vann | Published 27th January 2012 - 3:00 pm

One prominent member of Liberal Youth hits the nail on the head when she says ‘[I am] frankly sick of all this I’m a social liberal so I’m a better Lib Dem; no it’s Orange Bookers that are real Lib Dems… we’re in the same party ffs.’

And the contrasting Economist correspondent missed the target by a mile when he wrote - following our last conference – that ‘the Liberal Democrats are still in denial about their innate dividedness.’

You see according to this correspondent – quoted again in The Week – he has had a brilliant insight: ‘You cannot be both for, and against, the Big State.’ But whilst his truism is …

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Opinion: we must become the fair tax party

By Tom King | Published 27th January 2012 - 1:45 pm

Nick Clegg has been all over the airwaves this week, promoting one of the Liberal Democrats’ flagship policies: raising the income tax threshold to £10,000. This is something that everyone interested in social justice should naturally be inclined to support. If implemented in the forthcoming budget, it would reduce the burden on low- and middle-income earners, putting money back in their pockets at a time when many are finding the cupboard bare.

The policy also leads naturally to what some are already calling ‘Phase 2’ – tying the threshold directly to the current minimum …

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IPPR: making the Third Wave of Globalisation work for us all

By Prateek Buch | Published 27th January 2012 - 12:30 pm

A new report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), headed by a foreword by Lord Peter Mandleson, takes an in-depth look at the positive and negative impacts of the increased internationalisation of trade – what they characterise as the Third Wave of Globalisation.

IPPR’s Will Straw and Alex Glennie set out how the modern increase in global commerce is distinct from those seen around the Industrial Revolution and World War II that were dominated by the UK and the USA respectively. Today’s growth in global trade is lead by developing economies in the East with a …

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How do you get people to trust councils?

By Mark Pack | Published 27th January 2012 - 10:25 am

With increasing numbers of people’s minds turning towards May’s elections, now is a good time to dust off and update a post from 2008 about how people view their council…

Improving trust in local government is important, and can’t be done just by focusing on improving services: that’s the verdict of State of trust: How to build better relationships between councils and the public, a piece of research from the think-tank Demos and IDeA (the local government Improvement & Development Agency), published in 2008.

The report sees trust as underpinning a wide range of objectives:

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Diana Wallis MEP’s husband will not take over her seat

By Helen Duffett | Published 27th January 2012 - 9:42 am

The Yorkshire Post reports:

The husband of a Euro MP at the centre of a furious “nepotism” row has bowed to pressure and decided not to take over her Yorkshire seat when she quits next week.

Stewart Arnold, husband of Hull-based Liberal Democrat MEP Diana Wallis, has informed officials he will not be taking over his wife’s post at the EU Parliament, despite being eligible to do so as the party’s second-choice candidate at the last Euro elections.

His announcement follows a week of mounting criticism at the possibility of a husband automatically taking over his wife’s seat. Fellow Lib Dem MEP

…

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Posted in Europe / International, News | Tagged , , | 13 Comments

Opinion: getting the welfare reforms right

By George Potter | Published 27th January 2012 - 9:00 am

Today an open letter, signed by well over forty of our parliamentary candidates from 2010, will be sent to Nick Clegg. And, on Monday, a meeting, organised by the Social Liberal Forum, will take place in the Palace of Westminster in Committee Room 18 (made infamous by the story about Sir Bob Russell MP allegedly pulling the door off of its hinges).

The subject of both the letter and the meeting will be the recent voting record of our peers on aspects of the Welfare Reform Bill ranging from sickness and disability benefits, to the household benefit cap and child benefits.

The …

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LDVideo: Clegg – “the Coalition is calling time on our unfair and out-of-whack tax system”

By Stephen Tall | Published 27th January 2012 - 7:45 am

Nick Clegg’s tax cut speech dominated the political headlines yesterday — you can watch a 4-minute snippet below:


(Available on the BBC website here.)

Here’s what my LibDemVoice colleagues had to say about Nick’s call for lower taxes:

  • Clegg’s call for income tax cuts for the low paid is welcome, but will the Tories back him? by Nick Thornsby
  • Nick Clegg returns to income tax by Mark Pack

    • And here’s how the rest of the Lib Dem blogosphere reacted:

  • How will

    • …

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    LDVideo: Danny Alexander on the Coalition’s economic record

    By Stephen Tall | Published 26th January 2012 - 10:10 pm

    Lib Dem chief secretary to the treasury Danny Alexander was grilled by BBC Newsnight’s Jeremy Paxman on Wednesday night about the UK’s negative growth figures — here’s what Danny had to say about the Coalition’s economic strategy:


    (Available on the BBC website here.)

    Posted in YouTube | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

    Opinion: Why Liberal Democrat Conference is good for you!

    By Caron Lindsay | Published 26th January 2012 - 7:55 pm

    In 5 weeks’ time, the Scottish and Welsh parties meet for their respective Spring Conferences. The Welsh are going to Cardiff while the Scots head north to the beautiful highland capital of Inverness. As everywhere which meant anything to me as a child is within 20 minutes’ walk of the Conference venue, I’m delighted to be going there. Although it seems a long way north, it only costs £10 return on the bus or £22 on the train to get there.

    Just one weekend later, Federal Conference takes place, for the first time ever, in Gateshead.

    So, why, I wondered allowed on …

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    Clegg’s call for income tax cuts for the low paid is welcome, but will the Tories back him?

    By Nick Thornsby | Published 26th January 2012 - 6:54 pm

    It’s no secret that Nick Clegg is personally very committed to the Lib Dem – and now coalition – policy of raising the threshold at which people begin to pay income tax. It was one of the first big policies he argued for at conference after becoming leader, and was a key message during the 2010 election campaign. Clegg returned to the theme this morning, though, to call for the implementation of the policy to be speeded up.

    Personally I think this intervention is very welcome, not only because the policy is a good and liberal thing in itself, but …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

    LibLink: Mark Pack – Nick Clegg turns media weakness into media strength

    By Nick Thornsby | Published 26th January 2012 - 4:23 pm

    Over on his work blog, The Voice’s Mark Pack has a post looking at the extremely successful media coverage of Nick Clegg’s speech on tax policy, with the party using the fact that much of the media is still surprised by the idiosyncracies of coalition to our advantage.

    Here’s a sample:

    In a country used to coalitions, having the leader of one of the parties in government talk about their tax priorities a few months ahead of a budget would not be remarkable. With the British media habits, it had made today’s speech from Nick Clegg to banner news – lead story

    …

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    Opinion: The grammar school debate – an opportunity for distinctiveness?

    By Tom Smith | Published 26th January 2012 - 2:27 pm

    Alongside the news that the UK could soon see the establishment of ‘new’ grammar schools in Kent, Devon and elsewhere, and that Labour will be urging the Liberal Democrats to support them in blocking these plans, the Lib Dems should examine the implications – and adopt a distinctive stance – on this disagreement.

    The debate has gone over the usual arguments. On one hand, the pro-grammar Telegraph columnists imagine swathes of potential Nobel Laureates and curers of cancer who will irrevocably have their talents and spirits crushed if compelled to attend a comprehensive school.

    On the other hand, the anti-side quite rightly …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , | 16 Comments

    PMQs: The importance of Doncaster, almost to the exclusion of everything else

    By Paul Walter | Published 26th January 2012 - 12:56 pm

    At Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, David Cameron and Ed Miliband first clashed on the subject of economic growth (or, indeed, contraction). That entanglement was, more or less, a score draw. But Ed Miliband was much stronger during a later exchange on the NHS reform bill, culminating with this belter:

    I shall tell the Prime Minister what is happening in the NHS: waiting lists up, morale down. What does the majority-Conservative Select Committee on Health say about his reorganisation? It says that it will be a “disruption and distraction that hinders the ability of organisations to” release savings.

    Let us be frank: this

    …

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    Posted in PMQs | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments