Author Archives: Chris White

Chris White writes: The next local elections after May this year will be in November.

By Chris White | Published 3rd February 2012 - 4:35 pm

It is likely that a number of our cities will, by Government diktat, be holding referendums in May as to whether to move to a mayoral system. Some of these will give the go-ahead and Liverpool is anyway likely to jump straight to a mayoral system by use of a council resolution. The mayoral contests will be on the same day as those for Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs).

There are still some who, in relation to PCCs, are fondly imagining that Liberal Democrat candidates won’t be needed. This is despite the fact that it abundantly clear that the Conservative and …

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Posted in Local government, Op-eds | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Opinion: What happens if Salmond loses the independence referendum?

By Chris White | Published 30th January 2012 - 12:54 pm

There are clear signs that support for independence in Scotland is volatile and that the current debate is weakening it. Issues, such as defence, uncertainties over any financial settlement – not least because RBS is as Scottish as a glass of Glenmorangie – plus the normal fear of voters faced with a big step into the unknown, will all conspire between now and 2014 to make victory less and less likely.

So the residents of Scotland (including many who would describe themselves as English) may well say no. What then? Does the issue fade away?

In Scotland there would have to be …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 18 Comments

Opinion: Ever greater centralisation is not the answer for failing schools

By Chris White | Published 1st January 2012 - 9:50 am

“Troubleshooters are needed to spot failing academy schools around the country and sack incompetent headteachers, the new chief education inspector has said.” So reported the Daily Telegraph on 28 December. The article continued:

Sir Michael Wilshaw said ministers must set up regional early warning systems because by the time his Ofsted inspectors discover an institution is in trouble, it is too late.

As more and more secondary schools gain independence from town halls and become academies, it will also be difficult for the Department of Education to focus on improving individual schools.

Sir Michael said that to maintain standards, dozens of local commissioners

…

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Posted in Local government, Op-eds | Tagged , , | 13 Comments

Opinion: “The Pope…seceded with all his followers from the Church of England”

By Chris White | Published 11th December 2011 - 8:43 am

So says 1066 and All That (Sellar and Yateman – a prewar forerunner of ‘Horrible Histories’) when summarising the Reformation.

It’s a good line and we can smile at the vanities of sixteenth century isolationism, knowing that today’s politicians, and people, are much more sophisticated. Nor do we regard the continent as cut off if there is fog in the English Channel.

During the early hours of 9th December (mark that date) David Cameron, we are told, played a blinder and ensured that 26 out of 27 countries in the EU were rescued from their fiscal and financial folly by …

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Posted in Europe / International, Op-eds | Tagged , , , | 22 Comments

Opinion: What next for elected Police Commissioners?

By Chris White | Published 2nd November 2011 - 1:55 pm

In 1951, the Liberal Party fielded just 109 parliamentary candidates. 1959 was better with 216. And in 1979, shortly before the foundation of the SDP, we were fielding 577 – virtually a candidate in every seat.

Most of us have grown up in a political landscape in which our party attempts to field a full slate, at all levels. In the darkest days after the merger, in first-past-the-post European elections cynically rigged against us, we fielded candidates throughout Great Britain even though we knew we would likely win no seats at all. Indeed, I still remember my excitement at the prospect …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , | 17 Comments

Chris White writes: What would you do with £250 million?

By Chris White | Published 30th September 2011 - 9:33 am

This is the lottery dream, of course. Give quite a bit to charity. Pay off the mortgage. Buy a yacht and invest the rest sensibly for the future.

It’s not so clear what you do if you’re a government department.

Councillors across the country are waking up to the astonishing news that the Department for Communities and Local Government has been opening cupboards and jamjars and has managed to find £250 million it had not previously accounted for.

Not new money from the Treasury. Not money from other projects. But shiny, otherwise unused, cash.

So: what does the Department do? Allocate it …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 18 Comments

Opinion: Why I’m supporting creators but opposing the Digital Economy Act

By Chris White | Published 19th September 2011 - 7:55 am

Kevin (not his real name) drives his son Danny to the shops. Danny pops in and emerges with various items in a bag, for which he has paid. In his pocket there is a packet of biscuits which he trousered while collecting the other items. CCTV spots the fact that he has done it and he is prosecuted for shoplifting.

A few weeks later, Kevin’s garage makes contact and says that the Government has issued an order that he take his car into the garage to be adjusted so that it can do no more than 30 miles per hour. He …

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Posted in Conference, Op-eds | Tagged | 10 Comments

Chris White writes: Spare a thought for the Federal Conference Committee

By Chris White | Published 15th September 2011 - 8:53 am

I really never thought I would say that.

They can appear somewhat cliquey – the only Federal Committee to publish its mugshots in the conference agenda (apparently conference representatives aren’t interested in who looks after their interests on the Federal Executive or the Federal Policy Committee).

They can be a bit insensitive: not the cleverest idea to select a business motion which would increase their powers over emergency motions at a time when representatives are feeling restless. And a tad cynical to have it at 0900 on Tuesday morning when many will still be at breakfast. (Yes: I know you will have …

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Posted in Op-eds, Party policy and internal matters | Tagged | 26 Comments

Opinion: Give Gove the shove

By Chris White | Published 6th September 2011 - 12:21 pm

I was asked yesterday what I thought would be the key issues for the Coalition over the next 12 months. Political predictions are always dangerous (what did you predict would be the main stories in August?) but I plunged in and said that education was emerging as a clear division between the Coalition partners.

There has been a great deal over the past few days over the creation of the first free schools. The BBC tells us hourly that they are free from local government control: quite where they (and some politicians in our own Party who should know better) get …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , | 18 Comments

Chris White writes: It’s nice to be hated again

By Chris White | Published 31st August 2011 - 11:53 am

I don’t suppose many readers spend much time on the Daily Express. Most people don’t. But a quick glance at yesterday’s editorial rant finds that they have it in for the Lib Dems.
 

At a time when the tax burden and cost of living are rising and families are being squeezed ever more with each passing day the Lib Dems are fighting the Conservatives not for a tax cut but a tax rise.

This is a reference to the re-emergence of the mansion tax.
 
Not many Express readers live in £1 million homes. But they aspire to. And just to raise their fears …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , | 24 Comments

Chris White writes: We are not ‘customers’ on the railways

By Chris White | Published 2nd August 2011 - 10:18 am

On 26 May this year a First Capital Connect train on the Thameslink route caught a branch in its pantograph. When the pantograph was raised at Farringdon it shorted the power supply. The train managed to get to St Pancras but the passengers were not told to alight.

As it proceeded towards Kentish Town it shorted again and the passengers were stuck in a tunnel. No information was provided and no serious rescue was mounted for a period of hours. The air-conditioning also failed.

This is not unique. Indeed, on more than one occasion on the network, passengers have decided to abandon …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 22 Comments

Chris White writes: Police Commissioners – the descent into low farce

By Chris White | Published 28th July 2011 - 1:23 pm

News today that the Tories may not even field candidates for their cherished police commissioner posts, but instead are ‘considering instead whether to put … support behind other contenders, such as prominent and distinguished local individuals’ shows that this awesomely bad policy is starting to founder.

Meanwhile Labour are having similar doubts and, as discussed elsewhere on Lib Dem Voice, our own Party is hardly racing towards a sensible selection process.

The problem, of course, is not just that the legislation is not finalised but that the elections will be hideously expensive, covering in some cases several county areas: …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , | 16 Comments

Chris White writes: Is it possible to change Coalition policy?

By Chris White | Published 22nd July 2011 - 2:53 pm

Is it possible to change Coalition policy? Council leaders certainly hope so if the letter to today’s Times is to be believed. Over a hundred have supported – and no doubt many more councillors, deputies, backbenchers and the like might have done so had there been more time to hone the message and gather support.

The issue should be core to the localist agenda – although we need to be rather clearer about what we really want.

Not so long ago the police were governed (at least in non-operational terms) by the police committees of county councils. There was not much …

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Chris White writes: Approving Police Commissioner candidates

By Chris White | Published 16th July 2011 - 8:55 am

Readers of LDV will have noticed that there is an announcement about Police Commissioner candidates – presumably placed by the English Party.

Of course, none of us want these elections (and most councillors in other parties don’t either) but it’s in the Coalition agreement and so we are to an extent stuck with a particularly silly bit of the Tory manifesto. Such, I guess, is the nature of Coalitions.

What is troubling, however, is the fact that the English Party has decided to play the centralist card: candidates need in essence to be approved like parliamentary candidates.

One of the main …

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Posted in Op-eds, Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , , , | 14 Comments

Chris White writes: Policies or personalities?

By Chris White | Published 5th July 2011 - 5:18 pm

Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, described Pope Gregory IX as ‘a Pharisee seated on the chair of pestilence, anointed with the oil of wickedness’. The Pope replied that the Emperor was the forerunner of the Antichrist and the monster of the Apocalypse. (‘The Popes’, by John Julius Norwich, 2011).

Such was political debate in the 13th century, topped up by episodes of unspeakable violence.

At this distance it seems rather laughable that an Emperor and a Prelate (especially one considering himself the Vicar of Christ) should behave like that.

But while burning at the stake is now thankfully behind us, vitriol is not. …

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