Author Archives: Iain Roberts

Opinion: the problem of Welfare Reform

By Iain Roberts | Published 1st January 2012 - 5:41 pm

Ed Miliband has stirred up some New Year’s controversy, not least amongst his own supporters, with the news that Labour is to speak out more strongly against the perils of so-called “benefit scroungers”. Labour are no doubt concerned at consistent polling evidence suggesting that opposition to benefit cuts are out of step with the views of the public.

In reality, there’s little difference between the positions of the different parties, nor much change in the position of any individual party over the last couple of decades.

Across the mainstream political spectrum, few disagree that handing out state benefits too freely causes …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged benefits, ed miliband, universal benefits | 44 Comments

Searching for the cause of the riots is asking the wrong question

By Iain Roberts | Published 15th August 2011 - 3:08 pm

When events like last week’s riots and looting occur, we assume that something that was previously working must now be badly broken. What has changed in the last few years that has brought the rioters and looters onto the streets?

Government cuts? MPs expenses? Greedy bankers? Broken society?

Maybe.

Or perhaps there’s less need to panic and more need to take a measured view.

Might it be that this sort of trouble – relatively common in societies – is similar to earthquakes? Tiny earthquakes and tremors occur across the world most of the time and we barely notice. …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged #ukriots | 65 Comments

Thank you EARS, but the VAN is coming

By Iain Roberts | Published 19th June 2011 - 3:20 pm

Back in March, Mark Pack reported on a momentous move in the Lib Dems: from the EARS election software to Voter Activation Network, or VAN, which is used by Democrats in the US and the Canadian Liberal Party, amongst others.

EARS has done sterling service for the party over the years. I first used the DOS version of the software in the mid-nineties, when it had already been around for a few years. Younger readers may not have encountered the joys of the paper “Shuttleworths” that were used before EARS: sheet after sheet of knock-up lists, laboriously …

Posted in News | Tagged ears, VAN | 54 Comments

A challenge to Community Politics

By Iain Roberts | Published 13th June 2011 - 2:21 pm

Community Politics is an ideology beloved of many Liberal Democrats, even if not all are quite sure what it is. As Mark Pack points out, “Community Politics” is distinctively Lib Dem, and Mark contrasts it to Labour “localism” and the Conservative “Big Society”.

But is it right?

No ideology is completely correct – all have faults where they fail to capture certain facets and nuances of our complex human behaviour. Few are complete nonsense either – most ideologies have elements that capture something important, and it’s a foolish person indeed who dismisses any ideology completely.

Some are better than others, …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged bernard greaves, community politics, gordon lishman | 4 Comments

Economy shrinks by 0.5%

By Iain Roberts | Published 25th January 2011 - 12:08 pm

Initial economic figures for the UK surprised economists with the news that the economy shrank by 0.5% in the fourth quarter of 2010, and would have been “flattish” without the impact December’s bad weather. This follows four quarters of growth and will raise concerns over whether the figures mark a short term blip or a worrying longer trend.

As the BBC reports, a surprise 3.3% contraction in the construction industry has worried analysts, whilst the strongest growth came from manufacturing.

Posted in News | Tagged economy | 67 Comments

Graduate jobs up nine percent

By Iain Roberts | Published 25th January 2011 - 8:25 am

Coalition ministers will be glad to see that predictions last year of a continuing fall in graduate jobs seems to have been wide of the mark, with the latest survey by the Association of Graduate Recruiters showing an 8.9% increase in graduate jobs, with a forecast of further improvement in 2011.

Average new graduate salaries remain rooted at £25,000 and there’s clearly some way to go before the graduate jobs market fully recovers (though £25 is a figure the typical parliamentary researcher can only gaze at longingly).

As the job prospects for graduates improve, Lib Dem ministers will be keen to …

Posted in News | Tagged graduates, higher education, tuition fees, universities | 16 Comments

Labour’s plan to scrap the EMA

By Iain Roberts | Published 21st January 2011 - 10:25 am

For all of the noise Labour’s making about the EMA, you might not realise that it was their idea to scrap it. Before he was an ex shadow chancellor, Alan Johnson was Secretary of State for Education and in April 2007 he made it clear that Labour was planning to scrap the EMA.

An incentive scheme that rewards 16- to 18-year-olds for staying in education post-16 will be abolished when the leaving age is increased to 18.

The Secretary of State for Education said last week that education maintenance allowances (EMAs) would no longer be necessary when the age is

…

Posted in News | 71 Comments

Crime down again…and still we’re unclear why

By Iain Roberts | Published 20th January 2011 - 12:29 pm

Crime was down again in the year to September 2010.

Recorded crime shows falls across the board, with the exception of sexual offences which are up slightly. As ever, changes in recorded crime can be affected by changes in definitions, by the way the police do the recording or by the willingness of victims to come forward, but there are no major shift in any of those which would lead us to think it isn’t a real change. (In some previous years there have been quite significant changes, some of which have made crime look higher than it really was).

The

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged british crime survey, crime | 7 Comments

Of committees, camels and bibles

By Iain Roberts | Published 15th January 2011 - 10:20 am

A camel is a horse designed by committee goes the old maxim that ranks firm leadership by one strong individual as superior to a group working to reach a common agreement.

I know which animal I’d rather have in the desert, but is the saying true?

The four hundredth anniversary of the King James Bible suggests the truth might be a little more complex. The King James, which spawned many turns of phrase we still use today such as “salt of the earth ” and “skin of the teeth” came about as a result of a political compromise and …

Posted in News | 8 Comments

The Lib Dems need to complete their economic story

By Iain Roberts | Published 14th January 2011 - 10:05 am

All parties strive to have a narrative that makes sense to the voters and gets across the key messages the party wants the voters to hear.

The Lib Dems have a narrative – a story – about the economy, but it’s not being heard by enough of the people the party needs to win back. One reason is that the story has a beginning and a middle but lacks a proper ending.

The three main parties all have their economic stories for voters.

The beginning of each is a tale of financial woe. In Labour’s version (at least until …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged economy | 69 Comments

Why I support the Coalition: in praise of compromise

By Iain Roberts | Published 4th January 2011 - 10:17 am

I support the Coalition. Or, more precisely, I want to see Lib Dem policies and principles actually changing people’s lives, not just piling up forever more in some dusty old cupboard of policy papers and manifestos past, and right now the Coalition is without a doubt the only game in town when it comes to achieving that.

But what about all those horrible compromises we’re having to make? What about the compromise on tuition fees and many other areas? What about the 35% of the Lib Dem manifesto that’s not in the Coalition Agreement? How can we …

Posted in Op-eds | 58 Comments

LibLink: the full shambles of the ID card trial in Greater Manchester

By Iain Roberts | Published 30th December 2010 - 6:44 pm

The Manchester Evening News has been investigating Labour’s ID Card trial in Greater Manchester last November. Only 13,200 signed up from a population of over two million.

The MEN reveals how:

* Senior Whitehall officials were urged to email friends and relatives encouraging them to buy cards because of fears about the level of demand
* UK and overseas border guards refused to recognise the cards – with one traveller chased through an Italian airport after trying to use one as ID
* The Home Office discovered the cards could stop some credit

…

Posted in LibLink | Tagged id cards | 8 Comments

“More information please!” – a genuinely tough problem

By Iain Roberts | Published 20th December 2010 - 4:15 pm

When something isn’t as we think it should be, there’s an almost irresistable temptation to grab what looks like an easy solution and complain bitterly that those responsible are too stupid to do it.

Generally speaking (and there are exceptions) people aren’t stupid, and especially when a problem crops up time and again in different organisations, it’s worth asking the question of whether it’s perhaps a little more complicated than that.

Let’s take a look at one of today’s big stories – the plight of travellers trapped at Heathrow Airport, sleeping on the floor like, we’re told, some sort of refugee camp …

Posted in Op-eds | 10 Comments

On the receiving end of a tuition fees protest

By Iain Roberts | Published 22nd November 2010 - 2:21 pm

I recently spent the day at the office of a Lib Dem MP, who’s been targetted for a protest about the proposed increase in tuition fees. As a veteran of quite a few protests myself, especially back in my student days, it’s interesting and quite fun to be on the receiving end.

My personal view on the Lib Dem tuition fees position is one I’ve previously written about. With hindsight, the pledge was clearly a mistake and our MPs shouldn’t have made it. However, we are where we are and MPs have to consider not just the pledge but actually …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged higher education, tuition fees, universities | 26 Comments

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