Author Archives: Gerald Vernon-Jackson

Danny, Don and Nick stand up for Local Government in a way that Pickles never has

The Autumn Statement has announced no further cuts to local government in the next financial year, with a 2% cut the following year.

We’re grateful to Danny Alexander, Don Foster and Nick Clegg for stepping in and saying “no” to further cuts to local services over the next year – in a way we just haven’t seen from the DCLG Secretary of State, Eric Pickles.

Liberal Democrat Ministers have stopped an across-the-board cut of 1% to local government next year. That means up to £240m extra that will be in council budgets every year which will help fund youth services, streets, parks, …

Posted in Local government and News | Tagged , , and | 1 Comment

Opinion: Reflections on local and national power

Well, Autumn Conference in Liverpool was an interesting experience. Bumping into Ministers and asking them to sort out issues was strange. An odd aircraft carrier here, and regeneration scheme there. Who knows if these discussions had any effect, but at least we could ask the people who might make the decisions. Few of us now remember the last time this happened. The 1929 Liberal Assembly seems a long time ago now.

Being in coalition has this upside. To be able to influence decisions is what we stand for elections for. We think our ideas are better than those of the other …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 3 Comments



Recent Comments

  • User AvatarEd Fordham 21st May - 9:37pm
    Clearly individual MPs have to account for themselves but is it appropriate for the Deputy Leader and Party President of the Liberal Democrats, Messers Hughes...
  • User AvatarRichard Church 21st May - 9:35pm
    Great news. It is disappointing though that the humanist weddings amendment had to be withdrawn at the last minute due to a legal opinion from...
  • User AvatarJonathan Brown 21st May - 9:33pm
    "Only by the Western democracies and the Arab League States being prepared to match the military and political committment of Russia and Iran, by putting...
  • User AvatarMax Wilkinson 21st May - 8:42pm
    Does the fact that this is classified as an opinion article, rather than a factual piece, suggest that we are confused?
  • User Avatarpaul barker 21st May - 7:46pm
    As Geoffrey Payne points out "The National Polls" Have been fairly good at predicting General Election results - as long as you only look at...