Author Archives: Chris Richards

Chris Richards

Opinion: Halfway to 2015 – three bits of advice for new Lib Dem Federal Party Committees

By Chris Richards | Mon 7th January 2013 - 5:23 pm

The beginning of 2013 not only marks the start of the second half of the Coalition, but also the start of the newly elected Federal Committees. Here is some advice for the three crucial ones, Federal Policy Committee (FPC), Federal Conference Committee (FCC) and Federal Executive (FE).

For FPC: Radical policy is required for 2015
Common sense says the 2015 manifesto should play it safe, yet common sense is often wrong.

A study of policy positions in party manifestos since 1971 in Norway, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK shows: Parties in Government who adopt relatively extreme ideological positions do …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , and | 10 Comments
Chris Richards

Opinion: Are we valuing the right kind of growth?

By Chris Richards | Fri 14th December 2012 - 2:18 pm

Our economic system is built around the indicator of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It measures how much we have produced as a country over a period of time. It does this by adding together the market value of what we have produced. As a result, an increase in the market value of what we have produced signifies that our economy is growing. But should it?

In the grand scheme of human history, GDP is relatively new. It was created to allow the US to better understand how to develop

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 15 Comments
Chris Richards

Opinion: Time for Liberal Democrats to stop saying “No”.

By Chris Richards | Wed 22nd August 2012 - 10:55 am

If you Google “Lib Dems say no”, this is the result you get. Beyond the recent headlines on new runways you will see that this phrase is widely used in our campaigns. In the same search, click on Images to emphasise the point. One would be forgiven for thinking that this phrase is printed on our membership cards. This phrase is deeply  conservative and does nothing to help with our problem of explaining what the Lib Dems stand for, something I recently argued we urgently need to do.

At the next election an opportunity to set that vision our …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 12 Comments
Chris Richards

Opinion: Creating a legacy for UK sport from London 2012 – lessons from Jamaica

By Chris Richards | Mon 13th August 2012 - 10:50 am

Politicians of all colours are running around to claim credit for Team GBs success at London 2012. Similarly sporting figures are also running around to trying to gain funding for ‘their sports’ from the Government. How can we build on success in 2012 to gain even more medals in 2016?

I want to use the example of Jamaica, a country which has produced some of the best sprinters in the world. Since 1964 (way before Usain Bolt), Jamaica has won a medal in every summer Olympics – all of them but one in athletics.

As some of you know, I was born …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
Chris Richards

Opinion: A message from Paddy over a decade later

By Chris Richards | Tue 15th May 2012 - 12:10 pm

Back in September 1999 Paddy Ashdown gave his farewell speech to the Liberal Democrats’ Federal Conference. The speech set out some challenges for Liberal Democrats as we approached a new century. What is interesting to note, reading it almost 13 years later, is how prescient his speech is when looking at the credit crunch and the current Eurozone crisis:

Here is the inescapable fact. Power is now moving, increasingly, beyond the confines of the nation state and is rapidly making many of its institutions irrelevant.

He continued,

We must start taking global governance seriously. The nation states, their governments and their politicians are

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 5 Comments



Recent Comments

  • User AvatarEddie Sammon 19th May - 10:56pm
    Same goes towards investigating phone hacking.
  • User AvatarEddie Sammon 19th May - 10:52pm
    It's not all that bad if the Sun don't do a full page apology in this pretty much none story. I'm not an anarcho capitalist...
  • User AvatarCllr Mark Wright 19th May - 10:44pm
    If only we could have some l kind of judge-led inquiry into media lies that could come up with some kind of solution to this...
  • User AvatarEddie Sammon 19th May - 10:33pm
    I think we can and should become a more equal world, my point was to say I don't think there is anything wrong with making...
  • User AvatarDavid Evans 19th May - 9:56pm
    "... judging by the lack of internal criticism of Clegg and co by their grassroots activists." Well that seems to sum up perfectly how much...