By
NewsHound
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Published
31st July 2010 - 6:20 pm
Over at The Guardian’s Comment is Free website earlier this week, Lib Dem blogger James Graham dismissed Jack Straw’s overblown accusations that the Coalition is ‘gerrymandering’, and urged the voting reform bill to receive the more serious scrutiny it deserves. Here’s an excerpt:
Every time a Labour politician uses the word “gerrymandering” a puppy dies. … Gerrymandering is the act of deliberately fixing a boundary in order to give a political party an unfair advantage. Yet the proposed changes will not to lead to any more political interference in the boundary review process. …
One of the main effects of the
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This was the statement issued by Lib Dem Employment Relations Minister Ed Davey this week when announcing the end of the default retirement age of 65, and give people the freedom to choose their own retirement date:
With more and more people wanting to extend their working lives we should not stop them just because they have reached a particular age. We want to give individuals greater choice and are moving swiftly to end discrimination of this kind. Older workers bring with them a wealth of talent and experience as employees and entrepreneurs. They have a vital contribution to make
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There’s no prize at stake – just the opportunity to prove you’re wittier than any other LDV reader …
(Image courtesy: FromPlay.com).
Here’s former Lib Dem MP for Richmond Park Susan Kramer with her Tory successor Zac Goldsmith. What do you think they might have been saying or thinking about each other?
The winner of our most recent caption competition, the “Jeremy Browne passes the hat” edition – according to The Voice’s judging panel of one – was this one by Andrea Gill.
Got a photo of a prominent Lib Dem …
By
The Voice
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Published
31st July 2010 - 11:15 am
Michael Crick reported for BBC2′s Newsnight on a potentially controversial debate at this September’s Lib Dem conference:
September’s Lib Dem conference in Liverpool will be a pretty tame affair, I predict, since most Liberal Democrats are still on cloud nine over the fact they are now in government for the first time in 65 years.
The biggest controversy, I reckon, could well be over a motion denouncing Michael Gove’s radical policies on free schools and academies. The resolution has been specifically picked by Lib Dem conference organisers for a substantial debate.
First, it calls for local councils to keep their role in
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Here’s your starter for ten in our Saturday slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate:
Class has always been an intangible concept in the UK.
While most countries would define it quite simply as a function of income, in our class-hungover country there are all manner of other factors: state or privately educated, your profession, whether you have a degree, your postcode, your family circumstances (‘where you came from’), even your accent. So while carpenters and plumbers may well earn more than university lecturers there’s no doubt which of those would be regarded as the middle-class occupation.
How …
Three former Labour MPs and a Conservative peer lost their appeals this morning, over last month’s ruling that they could not avoid trial for alleged expenses fraud by claiming Parliamentary privilege.
From the BBC:
Elliott Morley, David Chaytor, Jim Devine and Lord Hanningfield had argued at the Court of Appeal that only Parliament could hear their case.
The four all deny charges of false accounting over their expenses.
The charges carry a maximum sentence of seven years’ imprisonment.
The men had appealed against a ruling in June by Mr Justice Saunders sitting at Southwark Crown Court in central London.
The judge had rejected
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By
The Voice
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Published
30th July 2010 - 3:02 pm
A press release arrives in the Lib Dem Voice in-tray:
Commenting on George Osborne’s announcement that the Ministry of Defence will be responsible for the cost of replacing Trident, Liberal Democrat MP, Sir Menzies Campbell said:
“This confirmation of what had already been predicted makes it essential that the case for like-for-like replacement of Trident should, as the Liberal Democrats have agreed, be part of the Strategic Defence Review.
“How can you possibly take on such a large financial commitment as Trident without considering the military and political implications?
“If fierce cuts are to be made in Britain’s conventional forces, surely we have
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Posted in News
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Tagged ming campbell, trident
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By
The Voice
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Published
30th July 2010 - 1:51 pm
A final reminder that time is running out: voting ends tomorrow in the Total Politics Blog Award… We hope readers may be inclined to list Lib Dem Voice somewhere, alongside many of the other fabulous Lib Dem blogging talent listed on Ryan Cullen’s Aggregator.
It’s that time of year again, when Total Politics asks you to vote for your Top 10 favourite blogs. This is the fifth year of the poll. The votes will be compiled and included in the forthcoming book, the Total Politics Guide to Blogging 2010-11, which will be published in September. For the second year running, …
By
Mark Pack
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Published
30th July 2010 - 10:20 am
Welcome to a series where old posts are revived for a second outing for reasons such as their subject has become topical again, they have aged well but were first posted when the site’s readership was only a tenth or less of what it is currently or they got published and the site crashed, hiding the finest words of wisdom behind an incomprehensible error message. Today’s has been updated with the latest hemline flip-flop.
Daily Telegraph, 12 December 2008: “Recession pulls hemlines down“.
Daily Telegraph, 6 March 2009: “Hemlines rise during economic downturns”.
Daily Telegraph, 9 July 2010: “It’s happening again. Hemlines are …
Professor John Adams has submitted a Mill-esque proposal for the Government’s Freedom Bill.
Adams, author of “Risk”, explains on his blog:
The Cream Buns Act would remove all existing laws and regulations that proscribe behaviour that risks only the health or safety of mentally competent adult risk takers.
Two nominations for early repeal: the seat belt law and the set of laws criminalizing the sale or use of drugs. They merit priority not only because they pass the Cream Buns Test but, more importantly, because they have criminalized millions and can be shown to have had highly significant adverse consequences. The
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Back in the old days, before we had a government that cared about civil liberties, Labour were busy telling us how wonderful ID cards were. No-one was quite sure what they were useful for (beating terrorism? tackling benefit fraud? getting a drink in the pub? travelling to France without a passport?) but whatever it was, they were really good at it.
Now, thanks to some persistent questioning from No2ID National Co-ordinator Phil Booth, we know that of the nine people who featured in the glossy advertising telling us how ID cards had transformed their lives and possibly cured …
The Coalition Government plans to scrap the default retirement age of 65 from October 2011, allowing people to work beyond that age if they choose. Employers will not be allowed to dismiss staff simply because they’re 65 years old.
As the BBC reports:
Business group, the CBI, criticised the speed of the proposed changes saying it left firms “with many unresolved problems”.
The government’s timetable to scrap the default retirement age would give companies little time to prepare, it added.
However Rachel Krys of the Employers Forum on Age was delighted, saying it was “really unfair” that people had been forced
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Posted in News
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Tagged ed davey, retirement
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Few disagree that non-violent crime has been falling since 1995, sharply at first and more slowly over the last decade.
One of the explanations for the drop is simply that it’s become more difficult to commit certain sorts of crime. Improved security, with the spread of double glazing and stronger doors as standard, has made life more difficult for the opportunistic thief.
Car security has improved and, whilst the serious car thief may not be put off, it’s certainly raised the bar.
But car colour?
Research from the Netherlands suggests that cars and bikes in more unusual colours, like yellow or pink, are …
By
NewsHound
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Published
29th July 2010 - 11:03 am
Writing in the Guardian, Martin Kettle isn’t wholly impressed with Labour’s approach to reform.
It tells you something about today’s Labour party that it is no longer willing to go into the parliamentary lobbies in September to advance the equality of representation for which the Chartists campaigned. Instead it will enter the lobbies with the opposite goals. It aims to block a reform that would equalise parliamentary constituencies. And it seeks to protect an unequal status quo of over-empowered smaller seats of which Labour is the main beneficiary. It will do this, moreover, in the
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