Liberal Democrat Voice | Our place to talk – an independent website for supporters of the Liberal Democrat party in the UK.

Chris Huhne: the straight talking fighter faces his biggest battle

It was in May 2011 that the allegation first surfaced that, eight years previously, Chris Huhne had allegedly asked his then wife Vicky Pryce to take the rap for speeding points that would have seen the aspirant Lib Dem MP for Eastleigh lose his licence. It’s a charge Chris has strenuously denied ever since, always saying he welcomes the police investigation as a chance to clear his name. When asked whether he would resign, he has previously only ever had to answer hypothetically, as here when questioned by Andrew Neil:

(Available on YouTube here.)

The LDV Friday Five: 10 February 2012

By Helen Duffett | Published 10th February 2012 - 5:00 pm

It’s Friday. It’s five o’clock. Here’s a fistful of lists that sum up the LDV week:

5 most-read stories on LDV this week

Posted in Friday Five | Leave a comment

LibLink: how to achieve digital nirvana – inbox zero – by Mark Pack

By NewsHound | Published 10th February 2012 - 4:08 pm

The Voice’s Mark Pack has published some useful tips on how to get to where every busy Parliamentarian, councillor, candidate and activist wants to be - Inbox Zero.

They include such gems as:

3. Stop using your inbox as a substitute for filing

Quite often there will be an email you have read, responded to but do not want to forget quiet yet. Perhaps you have made an order and don’t want to bury away the confirmation until the goods arrive. That is fine — but do not use your inbox for that. Create a “pending” folder to hold these interim messages.

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged mark pack | 1 Comment

This week’s council by-election results: Lib Dems GAIN in Towcester

By Helen Duffett | Published 10th February 2012 - 1:06 pm

From the Independent:

Liberal Democrats made two landslide gains from Tories in the latest council by-elections, suggesting their voting support has not been dented after the resignation from the Government of Chris Huhne.

Their candidate Chris Lofts took Northamptonshire County Council’s Towcester division on a massive swing of more than 30% since the 2009 shire polls.

Party colleague Lisa Samiotis triumphed at Towcester Brook, South Northamptonshire District.

This brings the total of Lib Dem gains this month to three, after a win from Labour last week.

This week’s results, courtesy of ALDC are as follows:

Posted in Council by-elections | 10 Comments

Opinion: Crime, transport and the battle for London Mayor

By Paul Haydon | Published 10th February 2012 - 11:30 am

Just six months ago today London was emerging from its third night of rioting, with a semblance of order only just beginning to take hold as a massive police presence descended on the city. The fear in the streets was palpable. We had been given a brief and terrifying glimpse of what sheer anarchy looked like, the rage and shameless opportunism of London’s marginalised youth provoking deep existential questions about what was wrong with our society.

Yet, as the contest for London Mayor begins to build up momentum, Ken and Boris’ campaigns continue to revolve around the same old topic …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged brian paddick, crime, london mayoral election, riots | Leave a comment

Political clichés I dislike #2: ideological

By Mark Pack | Published 10th February 2012 - 10:25 am

I’ve previously written about my dislike of that venerable clichéd demand for “government to send a strong signal”. Government isn’t a bloody semaphore team, thank you very much.

Not even I’m willing to believe it was the power of that blog post alone (plus natty diagram) which cowed the political classes into giving up semaphoring addiction. Yet the phrase does seem to crop up rather less often now, perhaps because of a change from the Labour government’s love of telling people what to do?

But we have not arrived in a happy new post-Brown cliché free world.

Instead, the one that now has …

Posted in Op-eds | 14 Comments

Opinion: The good, the bad and the ugly of the Lib Dems

By Scott Hill | Published 10th February 2012 - 9:41 am

This week has been something of a mixed bag for the Liberal Democrats. Aside from getting over the fact we have lost one of our most respected and feared heavyweights in Chris Huhne, we have been forced to accept that a serious reassessment of our position within government is required and necessary.

Needless to say, the ceaseless commentariat and Westminster gossips are not helping matters. There have been three stories – all different in topic and angle – that have focused attention on the junior coalition partner in recent …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged chris huhne, Liberal Left, parliamentary boundary review | 26 Comments

Government responds to consultation over individual electoral registration

By Mark Pack | Published 10th February 2012 - 8:55 am

Sensible news from the government yesterday with talk of modification to its plans for individual electoral registration in the light of comments made during its consultation.

Many people (including myself) criticised the plans to weaken the legal requirement to register, either because they oppose voluntary registration in principle or because even if they are warm to voluntary registration in theory they think that switching to individual registration and voluntary registration at the same time is a recipe for disaster. One should be done, sorted and settled in before the other is addressed.

As has been heavily trailed, the government is …

Posted in Election law | Tagged electoral registration | 3 Comments

97% of Lib Dem members back Nick’s call for raising income tax allowance to £10k as immediate priority

By Stephen Tall | Published 10th February 2012 - 7:55 am

Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 570 party members responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

Overwhelming support for ‘further and faster’ tax-cuts for low-paid

LDV asked: The Coalition is committed to increasing the level at which income tax becomes payable, from its current £7,475 to £10,000 by 2015. The tax-free threshold was expected to rise by about £630 annually. However, in a recent speech Nick Clegg said, “I want the Coalition to go further and faster in delivering the …

Posted in LDV Members poll | Tagged featured, nick clegg, tax, tax cuts (Lib Dem) | Leave a comment

Opinion – NHS Reforms: It is not too late to pull back from the edge

By Issan Ghazni | Published 9th February 2012 - 6:56 pm

If the Party is still licking its wounds and reeling from the catastrophic loss of public support over student tuition fees and the kicking received in the May 2011 local elections, then please be in no doubt, that the punishment it will receive from the electorate for its perceived co-operation in, and reluctant endorsement of, the demise of a much loved and unified national health service, will be on another planet entirely! And that will be despite the valiant efforts and guerrilla warfare carried out by our Peers led notably by Shirley Williams and others.

Essential to Cameron’s election campaign was …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged NHS, nhs reform | 16 Comments

LibLink: Brian Paddick – London is increasingly policed by force not consent – thanks to its mayors

By Nick Thornsby | Published 9th February 2012 - 5:17 pm

Lib Dem London mayoral candidate Brian Paddick had a piece on the Guardian’s Comment Is Free website yesterday on what is his undoubtedly his strongest issue – policing.

Here’s a sample of what Brian had to say:

Crime will be far more of an issue in the election of the mayor of London on 3 May because the mayor is now the elected crime and police commissioner for London. He alone sets police priorities and the police budget and he alone will hold the Metropolitan police to account. Far from holding the police to account, to date

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged boris johnson, brian paddick, ken livingstone, london mayoral election, policing | Leave a comment

Ed Davey MP writes… Solar power for the many, not the few

By Ed Davey MP | Published 9th February 2012 - 4:27 pm

Some things in politics are symbolic. For dyed-in-the-wool environmentalists like the Liberal Democrats, solar power is one of these things – indisputably clean, green and cutting edge technology. The sort of thing Liberal Democrats in a government that aims to be the greenest ever should be unequivocally behind.

Our commitment to the environment was why I joined the party in the first place.

So I understand why many of you were confused and disappointed when the Government appeared to scale back the Feed in Tariffs that allow people to install solar panels in their homes and businesses, not least when our decision …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged department of energy and climate change, feed-in tariffs, renewable energy, solar power | 24 Comments

Opinion – Twitter: powerful campaign tool or waste of effort?

By Alan Muhammed | Published 9th February 2012 - 2:55 pm

The simple tweet “F*ck” at 10am with the reply “Agreed” last Friday was the only source and all the evidence I required to know that Chris Huhne had been charged. Two words tied emotion with cognition. I followed Nick Clegg’s tax cut speech live through the medium of 140 character paraphrase: a sort of Focus-speak reduction I can only imagine would have the speech-writers crying. The utterance “Borgen – Danish West Wing” was all the persuasion necessary to watch it religiously.

Twitter is free, fast and tragic. And if it wasn’t powerful in facilitating the fall of …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged connect, jamie matthews, julian huppert, Online politics, tim farron, twitter, victor chamberlain | 3 Comments

Lib Dem members launch group opposed to the coalition

By Nick Thornsby | Published 9th February 2012 - 1:51 pm

The Guadian reports:

The first Liberal Democrat group openly opposed to the coalition is to be launched at the party’s spring conference in Gateshead next month with a warning that the coalition has been a political disaster for the party, as well as a denial of its radical roots.

Launching a website on Wednesday, the group Liberal Left said it hoped to become a rallying point for members opposed to the coalition and those who see the party as a centre-left organisation seeking common cause with Labour, Greens and others on the centre left.

One

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Posted in News | Tagged Liberal Left, linda jack, richard grayson | 22 Comments

5 most-read stories on LDV this week

Overwhelming support for ‘further and faster’ tax-cuts for low-paid

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