Author Archives: Nick Thornsby

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Welfare: right policy, wrong reasons?

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 10th January 2013 - 10:34 am

Many column inches have been filled with comment over the government’s decision to restrict a number of benefits and tax credits to increases of 1% over the next couple of years.

This piece (£), however, by the FT’s economics editor, Chris Giles, warrants a special mention, not least because it is makes some interesting points that nobody else seems to have done.

Here’s a (fairly lengthy) extract:

In any case, good evidence exists on living standards to assess the merits of restricting benefit uprating. According to the most recent year of data, 2010-11, the crisis has caused real household net incomes around the

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Posted in News | Tagged chris giles and welfare reform | 16 Comments

2013 can be the year Lib Dems prove the cynics wrong, but we have to get smart

By Nick Thornsby | Wed 2nd January 2013 - 12:43 pm

One of the most interesting results in Lib Dem Voice’s most recent poll of party members was the answer to the following question: Do you support or oppose the Lib Dems being in the Coalition Government with the Conservatives?

After two-and-a-half years of difficult negotiations with our Conservative partners, deep spending cuts, unpopular tax rises, hundreds of council seats lost and a national poll rating now consistently in the single figures, still only 19% of Lib Dem

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged budget 2012, coalition, featured, party strategy and tuition fees | 36 Comments

Clegg celebrates the “astonishing triumph of politics over conflict” which is the EU

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 27th December 2012 - 10:38 am

In his acceptance speech – just over five years ago – after Nick Clegg had just been narrowly chosen as the next leader of the Liberal Democrats, he said that he is a “liberal by temperament, by instinct and by upbringing”. But if those influences make him a liberal, they also make him, arguably to a far greater extent, probably the most pro-European of Britain’s senior politicians. Europe is a subject on which Clegg can speak with the authority of someone who is at least as comfortable, if not more so, in Brussels as he is in Westminster.

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Posted in News | Tagged europe, featured and nick clegg | 14 Comments

Jeremy Browne on his upbringing, an unusual encounter with Michael Portillo and why he is staying put in the only liberal party

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 20th December 2012 - 4:34 pm

This month’s Total Politics magazine carries an interview with Jeremy Browne, Lib Dem MP for Taunton and home office minister, by the Conservative MP for Reading East, Rob Wilson. He talks, among other things, about his aspirations for the Liberal Democrats as a true party of government, about his unusual upbringing (he was schooled in both Iran and Zimbabwe) and about why the Liberal Democrats is the party for him.

Here are some excerpts, starting with his time at school and university:

Aged 10, Browne was now at school in Harare with what he described as

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Posted in News | Tagged jeremy browne and rob wilson | 4 Comments

Do US politicians have a mandate for big changes to gun control laws?

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 20th December 2012 - 10:56 am

This article, by the Economist’s Lexington correspondent, David Rennie, is one of the best I’ve read on the inevitable debate on gun control following the appalling shooting in Connecticut last week. His argument is essentially that the only change that might actually have an effect is stopping most people having guns, with the rest only allowed under a tough licensing regime.

But since I read the piece a couple of days ago, it is this penultimate paragraph that has had me thinking:

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured | 15 Comments

Cable orders inquiry into Comet failure

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 20th December 2012 - 9:43 am

The Guardian reports:

The business secretary, Vince Cable, has ordered an inquiry into the collapse of high street electricals chain Comet after the government was left with a £50m bill in unpaid taxes and redundancy costs.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) confirmed that the Insolvency Service had begun a “fact-

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Posted in News | Tagged comet and vince cable | 3 Comments

LibLink: Paddy Ashdown – Fighting climate change is moral, vital, and in our own interests

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 6th December 2012 - 2:54 pm

In the Independent, Paddy Ashdown shares his thoughts on the Doha climate change talks, currently ongoing and being attended by Lib Dem energy and climate change secretary Ed Davey.

Here’s an excerpt of what Paddy has to say:

Despite being in the midst of global recession, it is essential that governments in developed nations recognise that tackling climate change is not just a moral

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged climate change and paddy ashdown | 7 Comments

LDVideo: Mark Pack gets Paxo’d over the autumn statement

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 6th December 2012 - 1:53 pm

Voice co-editor Mark Pack made his debut on Newsnight’s political panel last night, discussing the politics of the autumn statement. You can watch his thoughts below, or on YouTube here.

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Posted in News | Tagged Autumn Statement 2012 | 7 Comments

Cable voices concern over faith school intake

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 29th November 2012 - 12:53 pm

The Guardian reports on what it (somewhat exaggeratedly) terms a “furious row” between business secretary Vince Cable and Michael Gove, the education secretary:

A row has broken out within the coalition over the expansion of faith-based schools, with the business secretary, Vince Cable, writing a furious letter to Michael Gove‘s education department accusing him of flouting the 2010 coalition deal.

Department for Education officials, acting on Gove’s direct orders, had undermined the Liberal Democrat/Conservative deal by intervening to ensure a pair of proposed Catholic schools

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Posted in News | Tagged education, michael gove and vince cable | 12 Comments

LibLink: Lynne Featherstone in Zambia, part 2

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 29th November 2012 - 9:18 am

Lib Dem international development minister Lynne Featherstone is currently on a trip to the southern African country of Zambia. Her first visit was to the capital, Lusaka, and to a UK-funded empowerment programme for adolescent girls.

Over to Lynne:

This programme is supporting more than 1,500 of the most vulnerable girls, providing safe spaces and mentoring to help build their confidence and life skills.

The girls I met told me they were learning about their rights as women. One 16 year old girl said she now felt more confident to say no to unwanted approaches from boys. Another said the girls now

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged dfid, international development, lynne featherstone and Zambia | 2 Comments

The Justice and Security Bill goes back to the Lords with last-minute amendments

By Nick Thornsby | Mon 19th November 2012 - 1:24 pm

One of the government’s most controversial bills of this session – the Justice and Security Bill – goes back before the House of Lords today for Report Stage consideration. The second part of the Bill makes provision for civil cases to be heard in a ‘closed material procedure‘, with one side (and the public) barred from hearing the evidence of the other if a judge deems that it would be damaging to national security if it became public.

Liberal Democrat members, of course, overwhelmingly passed

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Posted in News | Tagged justice and security bill | 19 Comments

Chris Heaton-Harris and the Tories’ discipline problem

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 15th November 2012 - 9:40 am

One of the increasingly notable (and in many ways remarkable) things about the coalition is the stark difference in the levels of party unity and discipline in the two parties. While Liberal Democrat MPs and members have committed – often selflessly – to the implementation of the coalition agreement, the same cannot be said of the increasingly fractious Conservative party. Old wounds over Europe have clearly not healed, and the salt of equal marriage and the prime minister’s commitment that this should be the greenest government ever are making many on the Conservative fringes increasingly uncomfortable.

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Posted in News | Tagged chris heaton-harris, conservative party and featured | 1 Comment

The living wage is fine as far as it goes, but the Lib Dems can be bolder

By Nick Thornsby | Mon 5th November 2012 - 8:00 pm

There we have it. Miliband’s big idea: the living wage. Only it is not Miliband’s idea. And more to the point it is not a very big idea. In fact, it seems to me extraordinarily unambitious.

We presently have a system in which somebody earning the national minimum wage – which for most is not sufficient to live in any comfort even before tax – and working full time pays income tax at 20% on about a third of their salary, national insurance, VAT on the goods they buy, fuel duty and road tax on the car that gets them to …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged ed miliband and living wage | 16 Comments

“Standing up for the people of Britain by standing tall in our own backyard” – Clegg on Europe

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 1st November 2012 - 5:57 pm

Nick Clegg made a speech earlier today setting out his vision for the role the UK should play in the European Union.

You can read what Clegg had to say (minus, unfortunately, the “party political” segment which has been removed by the Cabinet Office) below, and what the Voice’s Stephen Tall thinks he should have said here. And here’s his fellow co-editor Mark Pack’s take on the speech.

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Posted in Europe / International | Tagged europe | 12 Comments

LibLink: Matthew Oakeshott – Osborne isn’t working – how do we rebuild the economy?

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 1st November 2012 - 2:48 pm

Writing in the Guardian, Lord (Matthew) Oakeshott is typically forthright in his assessment of the chancellor’s performance and the changes he would like to see:

What we need instead is a far bolder plan for economic recovery. I call it plan C for construction and capital investment rather than plan B but we can all agree at least, on this side of the debate, that Osborne isn’t working. We must be mad to treat our record low long-term interest rates as some sort of virility symbol, instead of an unrepeatable opportunity to finance desperately needed investment.

The pension funds and insurance companies

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged matthew oakeshott | 8 Comments

Justice and Security Bill: some recommended reading

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 11th October 2012 - 1:39 pm

As the distinction in much of the news media between straight reporting and comment becomes increasingly less clear, and in-depth analysis is replaced by instant comment, reliable, neutral and well-informed analysis of big policy issues becomes more difficult to lay one’s hands on. That is even more true when it comes to Parliamentary business.

Unbeknown to many outside the Parliamentary Estate (or at least to me until fairly recently!) are the documents produced by the Commons and Lords libraries. All the documents produced …

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Posted in News | Tagged house of commons, house of lords and justice and security bill | 1 Comment

LibLink: Guy Verhofstadt MEP – Crisis shows why EU must renew its vows

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 11th October 2012 - 9:24 am

Writing in the Financial Times, liberal leader in the European Parliament Guy Verhofstadt and his colleague and fellow contributor to this new book Daniel Cohn-Bendit (leader of the Greens) set out their vision for the future of the EU after the Eurozone crisis:

The crisis has shown up the key weaknesses in economic governance at EU level where a monetary policy was introduced without a parallel fiscal policy. Unlike other global currencies such as the

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged daniel cohn-bendit, european union and guy verhofstadt | 3 Comments

There are no easy choices when it comes to reducing the deficit

By Nick Thornsby | Tue 9th October 2012 - 12:11 pm

George Osborne’s statement that senior Liberal Democrats have agreed in principle to a further £10bn of welfare cuts in 2015-16 has prompted a strong reaction from many party members and a TV rebuttal from Nick Clegg.

But the issue is one worth pausing on, for it raises some important questions for Liberal Democrats.

Starting at the beginning, the first question raised is how we wish to close the deficit that will now exist in the first years of the next Parliament following the Chancellor’s decision in last year’s autumn statement to push back the period in which the

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged deficit, george osborne and welfare | 30 Comments

LibLink: Richard Reeves on One Nationism

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 4th October 2012 - 4:37 pm

Over at the CentreForum blog, Richard Reeves, former Director of Strategy to Nick Clegg and now associate director of CentreForum, has a post discussing the “political movement that now sweeps all before it”: One Nationism.

Here’s an extract:

All the main political parties have now made their claim to be the true heirs to “One Nation” politics.

The Conservatives were ahead of the game by a century or so, of course. But in more recent years, non Tory leaders have turned to One Nationism to pitch for the centre ground: though none as audaciously as Ed Miliband this week.

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged centreforum, one nationism and richard reeves | 13 Comments

“14 out of 15 trades unions fail the transparency test”

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 4th October 2012 - 2:55 pm

News reaches the Voice from Unlock Democracy, who have been carrying out investigations into the practices of the 15 unions currently affiliated to the Labour party. The research shows that 14 out of 15 trade unions affiliated to the Labour Party fail to explain to their prospective new members about affiliation and inform them that they have a legal right to opt out on their membership forms and website.

The top lines from the research are as follows:

Just 1 union (UNISON) mentions affiliating to the Labour Party.

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Posted in News | Tagged party funding, trade unions and unlock democracy | 8 Comments

Manchester Labour’s “crazy” decision to spend £425k on pop concert

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 4th October 2012 - 10:56 am

The decision of Manchester’s Labour-run Council to spend almost half a million pounds on a pop concert starring Alicia Keys has been branded “crazy” by Lib Dems in the city. Manchester City Council is currently in the process of making £296m of cuts to its budget over a two year period – cuts condemned as “ideological” by the Labour Council Leader Sir Richard Leese.

Here’s what the Lib Dem group leader on Manchester City Council, Simon Wheale, had to say about this use of scarce public money:

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Posted in News | Tagged featured, labour party, manchester and simon wheale | 9 Comments

The Justice and Security Bill: an important point that’s been missed

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 27th September 2012 - 1:06 pm

The debate at this year’s Liberal Democrat conference on the Justice and Security Bill was one of the highest quality of the whole conference, particularly on the part of those supporting the motion (and opposing the party leadership’s amendment). It was no wonder after hearing those fantastic speeches that the motion was passed so overwhelmingly.

It is true that significant amendments have been made to the Bill by Liberal Democrats since it first arrived in Parliament. It has undoubtedly been improved. One of the main improvements was to remove inquests from the scope of the closed material procedures that are at …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged justice and security bill | 7 Comments

David Heath: I’m doing all I can on live exports

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 27th September 2012 - 11:15 am

A couple of weeks ago on these pages I called on the new Lib Dem minister for farming, David Heath, to ban the live exports of farm animals following a terrible event at the last port to allow the practice, Ramsgate.

Since I wrote that post, another port – Ipswich – has begun live exports.

One of the fantastic things about Liberal Democrat conference, particularly now we’re a party of government, is the ability to question our MPs about the issues important to us. And that’s exactly what I did when I spotted David Heath.

He made it clear he is no fan …

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Posted in News | Tagged david heath | 4 Comments

David Laws and Vicky Pryce on the crisis in Europe

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 27th September 2012 - 9:28 am

Monday evening at conference saw a discussion between David Laws, economist Vicky Pryce and Simon Tilford from the Centre for European Reform entitled “Europe: from crisis to growth”.

This wasn’t an event that one went to if one needed cheering up: the overall message coming from all the speakers was a downbeat one, even if they all picked out some small shards of positivity.

Simon Tilford began by giving some reasons why on the face of it the past month has been a rather good one in the ongoing saga of the Eurozone crisis: we had the announcement from Mario Draghi, head …

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Posted in Conference and News | Tagged david laws, europe and vicky pryce | 19 Comments

David Laws’ speech to conference: no soaring rhetoric but a clear determination to deliver

By Nick Thornsby | Sat 22nd September 2012 - 3:42 pm

David Laws is no Tim Farron. It’s hard to imagine him rousing the passions of the party faithful as the party president does.

But what he lacks in crowd-pleasing rhetoric he makes up for in two things: first, a clear passion for education and secondly a seemingly effortless grasp of his brief.

There was little in the way of new announcements in his speech to conference, though he did confirm that the pupil premium would rise to £900 per pupil in 2013 and that by 2015 the Lib Dem pledge to dedicate a total of £2.5bn a year to the policy will …

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Posted in Conference and News | Tagged 2012 Brighton Conference, david laws and education | 2 Comments

One of David Heath’s first decisions should be to ban live farm animal exports

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 13th September 2012 - 8:27 pm

Tens of thousands of live animals – mainly cows and sheep – are exported, alive, from the UK every year. Sometimes the animals have relatively short journeys – veal calves off to live in intolerable conditions in France or Italy, for example – and sometimes they are exported much further – to Russia, or beyond. Most of the animals are ready for slaughter, and will be killed as soon as they arrive in their destination countries.

This often involves unimaginably long journeys for hundreds of animals at a time, crammed into lorries. Animal welfare campaigners have long condemned the practice as …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged david heath | 5 Comments

LDVideo: Chris Davies MEP – MEPs’ kindness will kill the fishing industry

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 13th September 2012 - 10:31 am

Speaking at a plenary session of the European Parliament yesterday, Chris Davies, European Parliament member for the North West, urged his fellow MEPs to look beyond the short term to vote to restore fish stocks:

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Posted in YouTube | Tagged chris davies and common fisheries policy | 9 Comments

Jo Swinson appointed new Equalities Minister

By Nick Thornsby | Tue 11th September 2012 - 8:41 pm

In an email to party members this evening, Nick Clegg delivered the following news:

Tonight I’ve been hosting a reception to celebrate the Coalition’s commitment to equal marriage, an issue I’m very proud that Liberal Democrats are delivering on in Government.

I was delighted to be joined at the reception by Jo Swinson MP – who I’m pleased to announce is our new Equalities Minister, in addition to her role as Minister for Employment Relations and Consumer Affairs.

This news, I suspect, will be greeted with a very deep sigh of relief by many Lib Dems, not only because it means a Lib Dem …

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Posted in News | Tagged equalities and Jo Swinson | 19 Comments

The reshuffle – who’s in and who’s out

By Nick Thornsby | Tue 4th September 2012 - 6:30 pm

We’re still updating our reshuffle live blog but now we’re starting to get a clearer picture of who’s in and who’s out, here’s a list of Lib Dems who we know are members of the government. This list will be updated when further appointments are confirmed.

Cabinet

With no changes to Lib Dems at Cabinet level, the line-up remains:

- Nick Clegg – Deputy Prime Minister and Lord President of the Council

- Danny Alexander – Chief Secretary to the Treasury

- Michael Moore – Secretary of State for Scotland

- Vince Cable – Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills

- Ed Davey – …

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Posted in News | 15 Comments