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 Labour parties will be contesting these elections and despite the go ahead from the Federal Executive, overturning the English Party’s efforts to prohibit Lib Dem candidates.

The announcement of key mayoral contests makes abstentionism even more bizarre, but no doubt there will be some jungle fighters out there still in denial about whether a political party should contest political elections.

By Christmas massive budgets for policing and city services will, like it or not, be in the hands of single individuals, only loosely scrutinised by councillors. There is a danger that the Party may have made itself irrelevant not only failing to field candidates in some parts of the country but by having policies which are now dangerously out of date.

We know that we are opposed to elected mayors and PCCs. We should perhaps remain so. But we need to ask ourselves why we are opposed and what this means for the growing numbers of directly elected politicians.

Key questions now need to be asked:

• how do we ensure that power is not concentrated to such a degree that corruption becomes possible?
• how do we have democratically justifiable mechanisms for removing powers from those who misuse it or just fail?
• how do we make sure that minority parties get a reasonable voice?
• In what ways should we press for the strengthening of the astonishingly limited powers of Policing Panels to challenge the decisions of a PCC?
• Should we insist that a Mayor’s Cabinet should be cross-party?

Meanwhile, what about the shires? The Government has done good work in preparing the devolution of important powers to cities and city regions.

But why should a county council, which might have a population of well over a million, not have similar powers? If that is the case is not time that we pressed for the first county mayors (or should we call them ‘sheriffs?’).

And in two tier areas how are district councils going to fit in? Do we still believe unitary authorities are preferable to the two-tier system when the most recent creations have seemed huge and remote? Does the city region model offer an alternative?

This may not seem to come up much on the doorstep. But it is a live agenda on which we need to provide new thinking.

* Chris White is Liberal Democrat Group leader at Hertfordshire County Council and Deputy Leader (Policy) of the Liberal Democrat Group at the Local Government Association

In the run-up to the general election, you may remember, the tabloids were screaming, saying that if there was a hung Parliament locusts would descend from the sky and the sun would be blotted out, you know… so we needed for those first few months to show the most important thing of all, which is this is a government that works, and actually works rather well.

Of course, after that phase you then get [that] we’re different parties, we do have different instincts, we do have different values. I just think we are quite relaxed in government that we have our differences – sometimes they are played out in private, sometimes they are played out in public.

Nick goes on to discuss what he sees as significant achievements for the party in government, and, in a telling line, describes the difficulty Lib Dem peers face in supporting legislation they wouldn’t under different circumstances:

Let’s be blunt: I am asking, day in, day out, Liberal Democrat peers to vote on things that they wouldn’t do in a month of Sundays if it was a Liberal Democrat government.

The interview covers such ground as reform of the upper house, Nick’s stance on the Middle East and changes to the tax system.

You can read the whole interview here.

Firstly, the IFS compares public sector pension provision with that of the private sector and implies that the inevitable disparity has to be rebalanced by cutting the public sector rather than improving private sector provision.

Secondly, they choose to ignore the approximately £100 billion saved by moving from RPI to CPI and then says that if you exclude £100 billion and the fact that retired public sector workers’ pensions are going to have lower increases than before, they are better off.

But this is only true if one discounts the effects of the CPI switch and then assumes that their pay won’t keep pace with the annual indexation of each year’s contribution to their pension. But even so, the difference between the two is insignificant because the lowest paid workers’ pensions are going to be tiny on any analysis.

A straight comparison between public and private sector pension provision is always going to make public sector workers look better provided for. That is because regulatory changes to defined benefit pension schemes and tax grabs of pension assets by the Labour government coupled with over-enthusiastic intervention by The Pensions Regulator caused a run for the door by private sector employers, particularly when the recession hit.

Those closing their schemes have tended to replace them with cheaper, defined contribution schemes which dump all the risk onto the individual worker, and to which employers have contributed about half the amount they put in to the DB schemes.

And about 9-million private sector workers have no pension other than that provided by the state. Auto-enrolment is supposed to deal with this, but does not get round the fact that a growing number of private sector workers have so lost confidence in defined contribution pensions that they are making the decision not to save for a pension at all.

None of this justifies an attack on public sector pension provision. A decent pension is one of the foundation stones of a civilised society and the answer to the differential between public and private sector pensions is to improve the lot of the private sector.

As a taxpayer I am very happy that some of my taxes go towards paying for the pension provision of the people who have spent their working lives teaching our children, catching criminals, keeping us safe and treating us when we’re ill. The government should be setting an example to the private sector in its treatment of those it employs instead of chipping away at their pay and pensions – the average public sector pension, let’s not forget, is just £7,800 a year with women on half that.

The most urgent action this government should undertake is to defend private sector DB schemes and radically redesign and simplify DC schemes to give private sector workers confidence that their pension schemes can be relied on. There are several models being developed, some along the lines of the Dutch collective DC system which to my mind would be particularly attractive to those not in a DB scheme.

There should also be a serious investigation into the structure and levels of fees and charges levied by the pensions industry, in particular the investment banks: there is a case to answer that these charges are excessive. Action should be taken to rein this in.

It is because the private sector pension situation is in such crisis that I will be proposing a motion at the Liberal Democrat Spring conference in March, calling for all these actions and more.

It is worth recalling that 100 years ago, when the giants of Liberal history, Asquith and Lloyd George, proposed introducing the state Old Age Pension that the Tories howled that we couldn’t afford it. The Liberals introduced it anyway, and no-one would question its crucial role in helping to keep old people from dying in poverty. And how did the Liberals manage to pay for this vast new line of state expenditure? They taxed the rich.
The argument is not that we cannot afford to allow our working people decent pensions. We’ve got to afford it.

Completing the changes, Jenny Willott becomes an Assisstant Government Whip, and Jo Swinson replaces Norman Lamb as Nick Clegg’s PPS.

Congratulations to those Lib Dem MPs taking up new positions in government.

• Electoral timetable for May’s elections: I’ve recently updated my May 2012 election timetable post with extra details
• Liberal Democrat peers on Twitter: having commented adversely in the past on the lack of communications from many of them, I’ve been hunting out how many are using Twitter. You can find them all in this Twitter list (which is a little more comprehensive than the other lists I’ve come across). Let me know if you spot anyone I’ve missed.
• Liberal Democrat achievements: over on Facebook, I’ve started up a daily posting of a Liberal Democrat achievement in government.

* Mark Pack is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and writes a monthly newsletter about the Liberal Democrats.

(Available on YouTube here.)

But now reality has struck. Though Chris was able to retain his cabinet post while the police investigated the claims (as Tim Farron rather neatly put it, ‘Tony Blair remained prime minister while he was investigated, I imagine Chris Huhne can just about cope with being energy secretary’) it was always clear that in the event of formal charges being laid his tenure as secretary of state for energy and climate change would be terminated. Nick Clegg made clear his own view on BBC1 last Sunday:

“Of course, that is a very serious issue if that were to arise. We as a Government want the highest standards of probity to be in place in everything that is done by Cabinet members.”

Nick and Chris contested the leadership of the party following Ming Campbell’s resignation in 2007. Despite a rather bruising campaign — probably best-remembered for the ‘Calamity Clegg’ jibe made by one of Chris’s team — the two later formed en effective working relationship, with Chris key member of the Lib Dem negotiating team which produced the Coalition programme with substantial chunks of the party’s election manifesto incorporated. It was no coincidence that one of the most detailed policy areas was the environment, a long-term passion of Chris’s, which saw him identified as being on the social liberal / centre-left of the party; yet on the economy, he was a Lib Dem fiscal hawk, trenchant in his support for deficit reduction.

Never one to avoid a fight, there was frequent friction between Chris and his Conservative cabinet colleagues. For example, he controversially attacked Tory chairman Baroness Warsi during the AV referendum for mounting an “increasingly Goebbels-like campaign”, spoke out in cabinet against the Tory tactics of personally targeting Nick Clegg (much to its co-author George Osborne’s annoyance), and took David Cameron to task for his ‘veto’ in December’s European summit. For some this smacked of betrayal. Personally I admired Chris’s willingness to say what he thought without resorting to the more common Westminster practices of unattributable briefings. Not that he lacks sharp elbows when they’re needed, a rare trait in Lib Dems which will be missed by (most of) his colleagues.

Chris will soon face the charges that have dogged him for so long; the rest of his political career will now depend on whether he can disprove them.

There will be few major implications for the Coalition of Chris’s resignation. For all the media excitement today, Cameron and Clegg have had plenty of time to prepare for today’s reshuffle. There may be bigger implications for the Coalition’s environment policies — Chris was a big hitter who achieved a huge amount in a short period of time: will his successor be able to continue Chris’s assertive work? An important first decision will be whether to retain Chris’s influential and knowledgeable special advisors, Duncan Brack and Joel Kenrick (a reminder that resignations have a human impact that extends well beyond the minister alone). Both were drafted in by Chris on his appointment to the climate change and energy post; it’s to be hoped they are allowed to continue in their roles.

* Stephen Tall is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, and also writes at his own site, The Collected Stephen Tall.

His statement in full is:

The CPS decision to launch a prosecution is deeply regrettable.  I am innocent of the charges and I intend to fight this in the courts. I’m confdent that a jury will agree. So as to avoid any distraction from my duties or my trial defence I am standing down, resigning as Energy and Climate Change secretary. I will of course continue to serve my constituents in Eastleigh.

Nick Clegg has left the Liberal Democrat Away Day in Eastbourne and returned to London. The BBC is reporting that Ed Davey is expected to be confirmed as Energy and Climate Change Secretary with Norman Lamb replacing him as the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills.

* Caron Lindsay is Wednesday editor at Lib Dem Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings

They will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday 16th February.

It is expected that Chris Huhne will now step down from the Cabinet.

Keir Starmer emphasised that Huhne and Pryce have the right to a fair trial and that nothing should be said or reported that could influence that.

He said:

All the available evidence, including the new material, has now been carefully considered by the CPS and we have concluded that there is sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against Mr Huhne and Ms Pryce for perverting the course of justice.

The essence of the charges is that between March and May 2003, Mr Huhne, having allegedly committed a speeding offence, falsely informed the investigating authorities that Ms Pryce had been the driver of the vehicle in question, and she falsely accepted that she was the driver.

Accordingly, summonses against both Mr Huhne and Ms Pryce have been obtained from Westminster Magistrates Court and those summonses will now be served on them. They are due to appear in court on 16 February this year.

Can I remind all concerned that Mr Huhne and Ms Pryce now stand charged with criminal offences and that they each have a right to a fair trial. It is very important that nothing is said, or reported, which could prejudice their trial.

His full statement can be found here.

We will bring you news of further developments as they come in.

* Caron Lindsay is Wednesday editor at Lib Dem Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings

1. We should adopt a three-election strategy and should plan on that basis that I would probably not be in a position to mount a genuine challenge for the seat until my third attempt. [It took him two rather than three attempts as it turned out.]

2. I would need to stay full-time in the constituency. So I had to get a job locally and could not afford to get distracted by anything other than the single task of winning Yeovil (i.e. I could not afford to allow myself to get interested in national Liberal Party affairs).

3. Our immediate aim at the next election was not to beat the Tories, but to beat Labour. Once we were the clear challengers for the seat, we would be able to squeeze the Labour vote in subsequent elections.

4. Our effort, therefore, should now be not in the rural areas, where we had traditionally concentrated, but in the towns – and especially in the Yeovil estates, where Labour’s traditional vote was based.

5. We needed to build up our base from the bottom, concentrating first on local government elections.

6. We could not rely on any newspapers, either locally or nationally. So we would have to find other means to communicate directly with our electorate if we were to succeed in getting our messages across.

7. We would nevertheless need a strong Press effort – we should aim to get at least one story, with genuine news appeal and about a local issue, into the local Press every week.

8. The national Party’s standing was not very high, so our key messages should be about local service not national politics. What was subsequently to be known as ‘community politics’ would be our battleground.

Taken from Paddy Ashdown, A Fortunate Life.

Some of the steps in his strategy are very specific to particular local circumstances. The general principles are however sound, especially having a political strategy and then shaping your campaigning to fit it, rather than simply campaigning where you are used to working or are comfortable with working. Still very relevant too is the need to make your own channels for getting out news, one which these days involves the internet alongside the traditional printed local Focus newsletters.

* Mark Pack is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and writes a monthly newsletter about the Liberal Democrats.

Credit must go to those few who were prepared to stick to their principles last night, not least Ming Campbell – and earlier in the “other place” many of our peers, such as Meral Ece, Joan Walmsley and Paddy Ashdown.  Everyone else should hang their heads in shame. I have no doubt that many were squirming as they walked through the yes lobby, but squirming’s not enough. Hitting the most vulnerable, the seriously ill, disabled children, abandoned mothers. Mealy mouthed excuses about having won concessions won’t wash anymore. This is about honesty and integrity in politics, something we thought important enough to put on the front of our manifesto when seeking power, but clearly not important enough to demonstrate once in power.

On the benefits cap,  of course it is crazy the amount of benefits that are going to some large families, mainly living in the South East, but the problem could surely be better addressed through rent controls and building more social housing? This dreadful bill will achieve legally what Dame Shirley Porter (why was she never stripped of her honour?) tried illegally.

And on under occupancy, yes of course, invest in schemes that support and encourage people to downsize, but isn’t it ironic that the same people who argue against a mansion tax because it may mean folk have to downsize to a smaller mansion, are the same people who think it is OK to force poorer people to give up their homes?

I am well used to being accused of bringing the party into disrepute for daring to question the direction of our leadership – well to perfectly frank – I don’t think it’s me, or those like me, who are fighting to maintain everything our party says it stand for, who should be so condemned.

I am afraid I am sick to death of the facile arguments in favour of this bill. It changes the goal posts, this is no longer just about the deserving and undeserving poor, everyone is now being characterised as undeserving. The dehumanising that is going on now of all those who claim benefits is scary, verging on fascist and certainly not liberal.

Federal Policy Committee meets on Wednesday and Gareth Epps and I have asked for this to be on the agenda. It is high time our parliamentary party were taken to task for treating the wider party with such contempt, but even more important that they are taken to task for betraying the values they claim to share. And, as George Potter has eloquently pointed out, this is people’s lives we are talking about, people whose “side” we claim to be on.

Since the Autumn Statement, when figures for the estimated size of the budget deficit in future years were revised upwards, one of Labour’s main arguments has been that by cutting “too far, too fast” the government has in fact made the deficit worse in the medium term.

Here’s what the IFS had to say on that argument:

The official estimates of the direct impact of policy measures announced since the coalition government came to power are that these will reduce borrowing by 2.7% of national income a year by 2016–17. Over the same period, the Treasury’s and OBR’sforecasts suggest that underlying borrowing has been revised up by 2.6% of national income in 2016–17. In other words, the fact that borrowing for 2016–17 is now forecast by the OBR to be roughly the same as forecast by the Treasury in March 2010 reflects two offsetting factors: (i) the underlying economic outlook has weakened significantly and thus borrowing would be expected to rise; and (ii) the current government has taken action to cut public spending and increase tax revenues by more than had been committed to by the previous government, which the OBR expects will reduce borrowing.

Of course, there are uncertainties around any estimates of the impact of policy changes on overall borrowing and it is possible that some of the weaker outlook for the economy has actually been caused by a detrimental impact of the additional fiscal consolidation announced by the coalition government that is not captured in the official estimates of the measures’ impact on revenues and spending. However, the error in estimating the size of the policy impact would have to be implausibly large to lead one to conclude that borrowing would actually have been lower in the absence of the additional tax rises and spending cuts that have been announced since May 2010 [emphasis added].

What the IFS are essentially saying, then, is that (1) the coalition’s deficit reduction programme has had a relatively small impact on overall economic growth, particularly compared to other factors and that (2) the budget deficit in 2015-16 would be significantly higher were it not for the tax rises and cuts being implemented by the government (see the final, emboldened sentence).

Anyone who has stopped and thought about Labour’s argument – that tax rises and spending cuts will lead to a higher budget deficit in the medium and long term – will realise instantly that it is utter drivel, but it’s good to see an institution as respected as the IFS putting it in black and white for all to see.

* Nick Thornsby is Thursday Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs here.

In October, Sarah Palin announced that she would not run for president in 2012, ending the media frenzy around her potential candidacy even as she vowed to remain politically active and influential.

“I will continue driving the discussion for freedom and free markets,” she wrote in an e-mail to her supporters.

Just over three months later her attempts to wield influence in the presidential campaign the way she did during the 2010 midterm elections have largely fizzled.

…Over the last two weeks,, Ms. Palin has urged voters in South Carolina and Florida to vote for Newt Gingrich as a way of striking back against the Republican establishment in Washington and against liberals.

Despite a stunning win in South Carolina, Gingrich was way behind Romney in Florida.

You can read the full article here.

* Paul Walter is Monday Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Liberal Burblings

One of the reasons he did so well is that he took a leaf out of Margaret Thatcher’s book. He lowered the tone of his voice. Gone was the shrill shouting of recent weeks. Instead we had a calm, firm low tone. And he slowed down his delivery, making it very de-li-ber-ate. As a result he sounded a lot more effective.

First on executive pay, and then on the NHS, Miliband did well against the PM. For me, his line of the week was this one on top pay:

he says that the class war against the bankers is going to be led by him and his Cabinet of millionaires. I do not think it is going to wash, frankly.

On the NHS reforms, he also started a very good chorus of “against the bill” from his own backbenchers, as he read out a list of professional and other bodies who are…..all together now….”AGAINST THE BILL”.

David Cameron got into trouble with the speaker for accusing Miliband of “hypocrisy”, which was deemed “not parliamentary” and had to be withdrawn.

Doughnut of the week
There is a little piece of business which takes place when backbenchers ask questions. More often than not, they are surrounded by like-minded MPs. It is interesting to observe the supportive nods and noises from these “doughnuts”. As Esther McVey (Con) asked a question, I thought Eleanor Laing won the prize for adoring look of the week.

Whipwatch
The Tory whips managed to rack up five Tory questions about the £26,000 benefit cap, with two additional Prime MInisterial mentions and a further question from the DUP.

The Labour whips managed to get in a few mentions of the contrast between the government’s ‘lax’ treatment of high earning executives and its treatment of hard-working families. In fact, “working” scores heavily in this Wordle cloud (right) of this week’s PMQs. Indeed, “I think it is right to support working people” is the sentence of the week, according to Wordle.

LibDem questions
Tom Brake asked about the future of the Epsom, St Helier and Sutton hospitals.

Juilan Huppert asked if the Prime Minister would go “further and faster” on the increase of the income tax threshold to £10,000, pointing out that the measure was on the front page of the last Liberal Democrat manifesto.

Quoting the tragic case of a constituent, Greg Mulholland asked whether drivers’ licences will be withdrawn as a bail condition in death by dangerous driving cases involving alleged serious breaches of the alcohol limit.

* Paul Walter is Monday Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Liberal Burblings

With the peculiar separation in the UK which has evolved between the ‘real economy’ and the civil service, media & political elites, this has left the political system scratching its head over how to achieve ‘fiscally sustainable quality growth’. The result has been a series of ad-hoc programmes – some designed to substitute for an ailing banking sector (growth funds, loan guarantees), some tax breaks, and facilitation of a few large infrastructure projects – but without a deeper look at the role of government in the real market economy in an international context. So here’s what to do…

1. The government needs to recognise the size of the task, the obstacles to change, and the extent of the long-term policy neglect. This leads to a conclusion that we don’t have the institutional structures necessary for the thousands of ‘growth-orientated’ reforms required across the UK administrative structures. For Conservatives, think of the effort needed to get the big privatisations done in the 1980s. Since the fiscal & macroeconomic changes needed are well underway, now is the time to switch the emphasis to growth.
2. The bulk of reforms needed include demonopolisations, removals of ineffective restrictions, more responsiveness to business needs in how the state delivers services and solves problems, and major improvements in the way that international trade & technology are promoted.. These systemic reforms cost little but are resisted by those benefiting from the status quo – often businesspeople that make political contributions. The reforms are hindered by lack of familiarity with the subject matter among civil servants, and bewilderment at how other countries run their ‘real economies’ more effectively. As a start, fiscally sustainable real-sector growth needs a Cabinet Committee of its own, where it is not crowded out by macroeconomics and fiscal policy.
3. Unfortunately, most such reforms take time. Decades. These include global trade & technology promotion reforms, how, regionally, education provision is better orientated to needs and shortages, and a wide range of equity finance, governance and competition policy reforms. Some however, have more immediate effects, such as re-casting how state R&D spending is managed, addressing excessive monopoly power and cartelisation in commercial banking, and further ‘planning’ reforms. Unlike macroeconomic & fiscal reforms, real market economy reforms are not ‘one decision’ changes. This means that policy requires pro-growth UK institutions internationally and up and down the country, which recognise the long term campaign nature of the changes needed.

Luckily the debate on this is now less clouded by the old market-versus-intervention ideological battles of the past. Also luckily, the Lib Dems are currently in a stronger position than the Tories in advancing these reforms. But not for long; some Tories are catching on…

The upgrading of the building regulations happens once every three years. I signed off the most recent upgrade in October 2010, which required a 25% increase in energy efficiency standards for new build homes. We’re now consulting on the changes for the next upgrade, most of which are due to come into force in 2013.

So what are the key things you need to know? Well, it’s the last stop before Zero Carbon Homes become mandatory. For new buildings, the Government has committed to introduce zero carbon standards from 2016 in new homes and 2019 for new non-domestic buildings. The consultation proposes to tighten the carbon dioxide targets for new buildings and introduces a specific energy efficiency target for new homes. The preferred standards proposed by the consultation for new homes could be met with improvements to the building fabric (walls and windows etc), whilst more ambitious standards for non-domestic buildings are likely to require renewable energy generation technologies, like solar panels, integrated into the building itself.

Compliance is an issue I’ve raised before and keep coming back to. In my Conference Speech in October, I quoted a recent study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, showing that not even an exemplar Zero Carbon Development in York was performing as it should, with the homes losing 54% more heat than designed to. The report concluded that many processes and cultures within the industry and supply chain needed to change if Zero Carbon Homes was to become more than just an empty slogan. I’m keen that doesn’t happen, so we are looking at how we might be able to regulate to increase the use of a new quality assurance standard, and I’m challenging different parts of the supply chain (home builders, product manufacturers etc) to come together to develop such a standard in readiness for 2013.

And there are also moves to cut carbon in existing homes and boost the Green Deal. We’re doing this through the introduction of “consequential improvements”, something Labour “bottled out” of introducing twice. Where homeowners or businesses are carrying out works to their building (an extension, a loft conversion or replacement windows) they would be asked to undertake additional work to improve the energy efficiency of the building at the same time. They will only be obliged to do so if they are eligible for the Green Deal, to ensure that they are not forced to bear the upfront cost, which would be paid for by the savings in their energy bills. This regulatory nudge, coming into force in October 2012, will help boost demand for the Green Deal, whilst also cutting carbon emissions and delivering cheaper energy bills for households.

There are a number of other important measures in there, including some key safety measures on structural design and radon protection. The total package of changes is positive not just for the green agenda, but also for businesses and delivering growth, providing a regulatory benefit of£63.1m.

The Consultation will run until April 27^th. If we are to ensure that the Government delivers on its promise to be the greenest government ever, then I hope Liberal Democrats across the country will respond to the consultation positively, and ensure we can move further down the path to Zero Carbon Homes.

Andrew Stunell is the Liberal Democrat Communities Minister and MP for Hazel Grove

]]> http://www.libdemvoice.org/andrew-stunnell-mp-writes-the-building-regulations-taking-the-next-step-towards-zero-carbon-homes-26920.html/feed 5 http://www.libdemvoice.org/why-i-still-read-the-daily-mail-26843.html http://www.libdemvoice.org/why-i-still-read-the-daily-mail-26843.html#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:25:04 +0000 Mark Pack http://www.libdemvoice.org/?p=26843 Four years on, I’m still a Daily Mail reader (even if they think I’m a foreigner). Here’s an updated explanation.

I once rang the Daily Mail to mildly complain about a story I had a connection with. The journalist I spoke to put me on hold while he conferred with a colleague. At least, he thought he put me on hold. But courtesy of him hitting the wrong button, I got to hear what they were saying. And it wasn’t exactly a master class in concern for accuracy. Yet I still read the newspaper regularly.

Why? Because it would be foolish not to.

1. The Daily Mail is read by 4.6 million people, making it by some margin the most read daily national newspaper. And that’s without even getting into its website, which is now the most popular newspaper website in the world. You can’t be interested in what the media is saying and ignore it.

2. Very large numbers of Liberal Democrat voters read it: around 576,00 Daily Mail readers voted Liberal Democrat in 2010, a number only topped by the 796,000 or so Sun readers who voted Liberal Democrat. That Daily Mail figure is more than the equivalent figures for The Guardian and The Independent put together.

3. The Daily Mail invests heavily in its journalistic resources. Whatever you may think of how they write-up their stories, its journalists frequently break stories due to having the time to do the old-fashioned legwork. Its record in breaking stories about dodgy Labour donations under Gordon Brown was a classic example: the Mail unearthed the story because it sent journalists door-to-door calling on Labour donors until they found something.

4. And then there’s the question of how the stories are written up… In my view, all manner of stories end up being written up in a distorted manner, but you can usually do a reasonable job of extracting the truth from a Mail political story by:

• Ignore the headline: it often exaggerates so much for effect that it doesn’t really match the story.
• Read the first line to get what the story is about, and then read the story from the end upwards: there is often a defence included in the story towards the end which undermines what goes before. Although I’ve read plenty of their stories on political topics which I know about and thought the headline and first-half of the story was distorted, I’ve not (yet) come across one of these where the second-half didn’t provide the explanation as to why the story was wrong.
• Watch out carefully for who is quoted to support the story. The usual structure of the political scandal story is to have a quote from an opposition politician, often calling for an inquiry. There are some, from all parties – such as Vince Cable in the example linked to above – who have a track record of only calling for an inquiry or condemning someone when they have very good grounds to. Then there are others seemingly will happily condemn something based on the merest prod of encouragement from a journalist.

Apply these three tests and you can do pretty well at getting to the truth of a Daily Mail political story. I’ve seen plenty of devastating demolitions of Mail political stories, but those have all been ones where these three tests had warned me already. Of course, one day there’ll be a story that breaks all these rules, and all this leaves aside the question of what stories to choose to run in the first place…

* Mark Pack is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and writes a monthly newsletter about the Liberal Democrats.

Here are two graphs, both from the Financial Times. This one shows the UK’s Nominal Gross Domestic Product. It shows the development of the double dip recession we are facing.

The figures are up to October 2011. The next will be published in February, but expect the trend lines to continue ‘south’.

Then, here’s a chart of a measure of the supply of money in the economy. It is a broad measure called M4

This is a very revealing chart. First, what you can see is that since mid-2011 it too has gone south in a hurry.

What is also striking about this second diagram is that it shows that the money supply was falling *before* the Northern Rock crisis and obviously before the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the onset of the banking crisis, proper.

With the link between the money supply and prices, you would expect inflation to start falling in late 2008. And so it did. Inflation breakevens fell from 2.85% on 1st September 2008 to -2.77% on 2nd December 2008.

So with money supply figures pointing to inflation falling fast, Lehmans going txxs-up, banks refusing to lend to one another and the prospect of a severe deflation staring us in the face, you would have expected the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to slash interest rates. Or at least you would have expected to hear Prime Minister Brown throwing telephones about the place if they hadn’t. They did, surely they did, didn’t they?

No. The Bank of England did not lower short term rates to 0.5% and start quantitative easing until March 2009, six months after Lehman.

The MPC were utterly negligent and a mild recession got a hold on the minds of consumers and producers alike to make it a Great Recession.

Back at the first diagram you will see that things started to improve, but, before it could really make a difference, the voices on the MPC started calling for interest rate rises. At one point three of them wanted increases. Imagine if there had been a majority for that policy!

As you can see from the M4 figures the money supply has been bumping along at 2 or 3%. If you have inflation at 4 or 5% (because of tax hikes and oil price increases) and increase in the money supply of only 2 or 3% is a real reduction of 2 or 3% – keeping the brakes on the economy. No wonder it can’t motor down the road, let alone get up the hill.

And here is the hill. For a long period before 2007 the Bank of England seemed able to keep NGDP rising at around 5%. Roughly 2.5% inflation and 2.5% growth. NGDP today is 10% below where it would have been if there had been the necessary monetary stimulus to get the economy back on trend.

That’s a lot of jobs, a lot of lost tax (the main reason for the deficit increases) and a lot of extra benefits to be paid.

Why 29 days to save the UK?

We need to reduce real interest rates by raising the expected rate of inflation. This means resetting the mandate given to the Bank of England and the MPC by HM Treasury. And that’s done every March.

The thinking behind setting a higher price target is described by Nicholas Craft in a paper commissioned by the Centre Forum entitled, helpfully, Delivering growth while reducing deficits.

The slack this cuts us should be used as part of a great campaign to revive house building. According to Professor Craft, that’s what did the trick in 1932/4.

29 days and counting.

In a development that you couldn’t make up, the Independent, in its own coverage of the programme,  referred to Lord Ashdown when talking about the Conservative Party’s major benefactor.

This prompted our own Paddy Ashdown to write to the paper with, The Voice suspects, his tongue firmly wedged in his cheek

“It is one thing to misrepresent my position on the benefit cap as you did last week, but quite another to confuse me with Lord Ashcroft, the Tory funder of Belize fame, as you did yesterday in your report “Lord Ashcroft accused of hiding business links to ‘corrupt” islands”.

Please reassure your readers that I am a quiet little herbivorous Lib Dem living a life which offends no one in a small cottage in Somerset.”

That took me through student days in Dundee and on to electioneering in my home base of Glasgow Maryhill, with the occasional foray to by-elections around the UK. Two of these were successful (Liverpool, Edgehill and Kincardine & Deeside) unlike personal attempts to get elected at any and every available level. One of the worst moments was forgetting the imprint on a handout and spending hours stamping it with a John Bull Printing Kit. One of the best was when the Labour Party got rattled enough to put out an eve of poll attacking us. Then, of course, there was that first saved deposit!

Meantime, we weathered the Alliance and the merger and, despite initial scepticism about the latter, in Glasgow, Liberals and Social Democrats blended seamlessly together. There were stints on the Party Executiveas well, a role in redrafting the Federal Constitution and in chairing our local Party from time to time. I’ve just stood down from another go at the last of these and am currently relishing my status an ordinary member.

Of course, in between, I did finally manage to get elected and to the European Parliament no less. That was a fascinating and highly fulfilling ten years – even if specialising in fisheries did not seem the obvious choice for someone whose previous day job had been teaching legal theory and comparative law.

It was not, however, the Liberal commitment to engaging with Europe that took me into the Party in the first place – although I rapidly became committed to that cause. Home Rule for Scotland, proportional representation and co-operatives were the key. Things have moved on considerably in relation to the first two – though not without some hitches en route! And a recent pronouncement from the Deputy Prime Minister suggests that the last has not been quite as forgotten as I had thought.

Like many others of a social liberal persuasion, though, I have concerns that we have begun to lose touch with some of the principles underlying these policies. So, foot soldiering from now on shall be confined to delivering my own leafleting walk. The question is whether I can recall enough of my old philosophical training to start putting useful words on paper rather than just through people’s doors.

Stephen Tall: The publication of the University application figures for 2012 — the first year of the new £9k maximum fees regime — has something for everyone. Those who have always claimed the prospect of huge debt would deter potential students can point to the headline 8.7% decline in applications. Those who say the new fees repayments system is the best affordable deal can highlight that this year marks the second highest ever number of applications from teenagers, including for those from disadvantaged areas. Whichever side you take, these are in any case just one year’s figures: this debate will continue to rage.

Another debate which will rage is likely to be this: what should the Lib Dem policy on tuition fees now be? Officially, party policy remains unchanged from the 2010 manifesto: the Lib Dems are committed to abolishing them. However, we all know what happened after the general election: the biting reality of Coalition politics triggered an infamous U-turn. Can the party really enter the 2015 general election with the same policy that we reneged on in this parliament? And if not how should Lib Dem policy start adapting to the changed reality of the new fees policy?

Mark Pack: Both the economics and the politics of promising to abolishing tuition fees in the 2015 manifesto look pretty implausible to me. Even if we thought it was politically sensible to say “we didn’t do it last time, but we really mean it this time”, given the likely state of the nation’s finances in 2015 there is unlikely to be much money to spare for extra spending on policy priorities and there’s going to be a long list of other worthy causes to lay claim to what cash there is.

What might well be plausible on both fronts is a limited expansion of bursaries and the like so that tuition fees and maintenance costs are covered for a larger number of those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. It would fit well with Nick Clegg’s passion for social mobility and the party’s wide message about building a fairer society.

Stephen Tall: I agree with you on both the economic and political implausibility of sticking to a ‘scrap fees’ policy which almost half the party’s MPs voted against. Yet I also find it implausible that the Lib Dem conference-voting members will find it in themselves to jettison a policy to which the party has been so wedded. I guess a compromise might be accommodated which sidelines the abolition of fees as a long-term aspiration impossible in present circumstances — in which case it risks becoming our Clause IV, a not-to-be-implemented policy which members cling to out of nostalgia but which simply reminds the public of a distinctly unglorious moment in our party’s history.

On your point about the party developing a more pragmatic policy of targeted assistance to help those groups most likely to be put off by fees, this seems to me essential. However, we need to ensure our thinking is informed by evidence of what actually works. As it happens in the example you cite, bursaries, the evidence so far indicates such assistance doesn’t actually help encourage the poorest to apply to university (though it may help in lowering drop-out rates). Too much educational policy in this country is based on personal hunches of what should work, and not enough on the reality of what will help. If the party wants to be taken seriously on access to higher education, it needs to start doing some proper policy heavy-lifting. And soon.

Mark Pack: The big untouched issue in higher education is the reliance on lectures – and on lecturers who aren’t trained in lecturing to boot. I say this as a former sometime university lecturer… We say the education is vital and yet let people get up in front of students and lecture with remarkably little in the way of training in many cases. Reputations and ratings do help push universities into doing rather more than they used to in order to ensure that lecturers do a good job, but even whey they do the central tool – the lecture – is still predominantly used in a very old fashioned way.

With the widespread availability of video on demand over the internet letting students watch the world’s best lecturers from previous decades at the click of a mouse, the idea that there should be widespread use of an inexperienced, under-trained person who stands up and talks for 55 minutes is very much in need of questioning.