Tag Archives: david laws

Lib Dems put pension tax breaks for the richest under scrutiny again

By Mark Pack | Published 11th February 2012 - 10:25 am

Liberal Democrat pressure in the coalition government has already secured significant reductions in the tax breaks for the very richest. However, these tax breaks are still sufficiently generous that there is the scope for raising plenty more money without introducing punitive tax rates.

For example, restricting the tax relief on pension contributions to 20% (the standard rate for most people) rather than the current 40% for those earning over £100,000 would raise over £3.5 billion more each year. Last year, in a clear sign of the way in which senior Liberal Democrats are thinking, David Laws asked a series of Parliamentary …

Posted in News | Also tagged danny alexander, tax, tax cuts (Lib Dem) | 5 Comments

EXCLUSIVE: 72% of Lib Dem members backed reshuffle return for David Laws. (But it wasn’t to be.)

By Stephen Tall | Published 4th February 2012 - 2:45 pm

Earlier this week, LibDemVoice started asking party members signed up to our discussion forum a range of questions — the survey is still live, but one of the questions is already a little previous so we’re reporting it early…

We asked: Would you support or oppose David Laws making a return to government at the next reshuffle?

Yes – to a cabinet post 58%
Yes – but only to a non-cabinet post in government 14%
No – he should not return to the government at the next reshuffle 21%
Don’t know / No opinion 7%

In total, then, 72% of Lib Dem members in our sample wanted to see David Laws return to a ministerial post in the Coalition government, with most wanting to see him return to the cabinet 18 months after he was forced to resign.

Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged nick clegg, paul waugh | 1 Comment

Andrew Marr bids for record-breaking number of different topics in one interview

By Mark Pack | Published 22nd January 2012 - 11:15 am

I wonder if somewhere deep in the BBC there is a target for how many different topics must be asked about in political interviews each month and someone woke up this morning to realise that January’s quota is about to be missed. Or perhaps there was a typo in Andrew Marr’s contract and his BBC salary is based on number of topics covered rather than number of minutes of screentime filled.

Whatever the reason, this morning’s interview with Nick Clegg saw a helter skelter tour around a huge number of topics, making for a comprehensive tour of current political issues but …

Posted in News | Also tagged andrew marr, economy, nick clegg | 4 Comments

LibLink: David Laws – Reasons to be cheerful in 2012

By The Voice | Published 16th January 2012 - 11:54 am

In the Daily Mail, David Laws gives readers a tour d’horizon of the economy, ending with some optimisim:

The first good news is that inflation should fall – and steeply. Last year, inflation rose because of higher energy and food prices, and the rise in VAT.

Most of those increases are behind us – last week, energy price cuts of five per cent were trumpeted. Inflation, which peaked last year at 5.6 per cent (retail prices), should be down to about 2.5 per cent by May.

That will help hard-pressed household budgets.

The second piece of good news is that

…

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged economy | 10 Comments

David Laws: Free schools should focus on education, not profit

By Nick Thornsby | Published 11th January 2012 - 2:28 pm

David Laws is interviewed in the current issue of Attain, a magazine focussed on the independent schools’ sector, where he has the following to say on the issue of whether free schools should be permitted to make profits:

I think it is important that the people who come in and deliver the education should be seen to be doing so for reasons relating to education and delivering an improved quality of education. And I think that the public would be far more suspicious of the free school development if they felt it was about people coming in to make profit out

…

Posted in News | Also tagged education, free schools | 8 Comments

And the most-mentioned Lib Dems of 2011 were…

By Stephen Tall | Published 31st December 2011 - 7:55 am

Two Lib Dem ministers made it into the top 10 of most-mentioned politicians in the national print media in 2011. Not surprisingly, one was Nick Clegg, the Deputy PM; the other was Chris Huhne, energy and climate change secretary.

Here’s the graphic which shows them placed 4th and 10th respectively:

Two Lib Dems also made it into the list of top 10 backbenchers who appeared in the national print media in 2011. Ming Campbell and David Laws popped up at 9th and 10th respectively (42nd and …

Posted in News | Also tagged chris huhne, ming campbell, nick clegg | 2 Comments

Get your skates on and submit a motion to Liberal Democrat conference about wealth taxes

By Mark Pack | Published 27th December 2011 - 9:25 am

Nick Clegg’s recent ‘open society’ speech confirmed that increases taxes on wealth in some form is very much on the political agenda. However, the default party policy option – a mansion tax – was highly controversial in the party when it was introduced (which is rather a polite term for the rolling lesson in how to bungle a policy launch, annoy MPs, irritate party members and feed negative stories to the media all in one fell swoop).

In other words – now is a very good time for the party to be debating what form of wealth taxes it favours, especially after the opportunity was missed at the party’s autumn conference. As I wrote at the time in Tax: The missing ingredient from the Liberal Democrat conference agenda,

Posted in Op-eds, Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged featured, land value tax, nick clegg, tax, tim montgomerie, vince cable | 35 Comments

LibLink: From David Laws to Andrew George – The Lib Dem rebellion league table

By The Voice | Published 19th December 2011 - 11:55 am

Over on Left Foot Forward, Mark Pack has blogged an infographic analysing the patterns of rebellion amongst Liberal Democrat MPs:

Liberal Democrat peers used to be in a remarkably privileged position in the party. Not only because they have held office without the pesky need for elections but also because for many years the third party in the House of Lords has been the key swing vote when the government has been wanting to get legislation through…

[However,] helped by the primacy of the Commons, revolts by Liberal Democrat MPs which could cost the government its majority are now no longer the neglected,

…

Posted in LibLink, Parliament | Also tagged andrew george, mark pack | 9 Comments

Nick Clegg leads business fightback in Europe

By Nick Thornsby | Published 15th December 2011 - 6:55 pm

The FT reports:

Nick Clegg yesterday made a very public display of engagement with business over Europe as the deputy prime minister convened a business breakfast with Business For New Europe, a pro-single market group. Mr Clegg, flanked by Vince Cable, Danny Alexander, Chris Huhne David Laws, wanted to get the message across that he had dusted himself down and was ready to begin work on rebuilding relations on the continent after a bruising week for Britain.

But beyond the photo shoot and crafted media message lines, was a second, more exclusive meeting between Mr Clegg and the director-generals of key lobby

…

Posted in News | Also tagged business, chris huhne, danny alexander, europe, nick clegg, vince cable | 2 Comments

Opinion: The coalition will now change; the Lib Dems must ensure it does so for the better

By Nick Thornsby | Published 15th December 2011 - 1:26 pm

When, earlier this year, David Cameron sanctioned the Conservative-dominated No to AV campaign to attack his until then unfailingly loyal deputy, he precipitated the end of coalition phase one. It had not meant to happen so quickly, but the Liberal Democrat reaction – the strategy of differentiation – soon followed.

The prime minister’s actions in Europe last week are a similar turning point. By pandering to the extremes in his party – by acting as Tory leader rather than prime minister, as Paddy Ashdown put it – David Cameron has forced Nick Clegg to once again rethink the Liberal Democrat approach …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged coalition, david cameron, featured, paddy ashdown | 23 Comments

LDVideo: David Laws interviewed by Mark Littlewood

By Nick Thornsby | Published 1st December 2011 - 5:57 pm

Last week, the Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs, Mark Littlewood, spent an hour talking to David Laws at the IEA’s Westminster headquarters. Before a packed room, Mark and David touched on a whole range of issues – taxation, Europe, the formation of the coalition, just exactly how liberal the Liberal Democrats are, and many more.

The hour-long exchange, which you can see below, is well worth a watch:

(Video also available on vimeo here.)

Posted in News, YouTube | Also tagged coalition, european union, institute of economic affairs, mark littlewood, tax | 2 Comments

LibLink: David Laws – George Osborne must stick to austerity Plan A

By Nick Thornsby | Published 29th November 2011 - 9:57 am

Over at the London Evening Standard, Lib Dem MP for Yeovil and former Treasury chief secretary, David Laws, has a piece urging the chancellor to maintain the coalition’s deficit reduction plan to avoid importing the debt-driven eurozone crisis to Britain.

Here’s a sample:

Before the general election, many people said that a coalition would be weak and unstable. They don’t say that any more. By comparison with the eurozone and the US, our Government looks strong, stable and united. It is set to stay that way.

The Chancellor will be able to report that borrowing has been falling as planned. Borrowing from April

…

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged deficit, economy, george osborne | 7 Comments

Was there a Clegg coup? Review of The Clegg Coup – Britain’s First Coalition Government Since Lloyd George by Jasper Gerard

By Mark Pack | Published 23rd November 2011 - 9:54 am

Many book titles reveal little about what their book contains, either providing but a banal name for its contents or a clever, clever name which obscures rather than reveals. However, The Clegg Coup – Britain’s First Coalition Government Since Lloyd George by Jasper Gerard has a title which is revealing in two aspects. First, the way general accuracy in the book is marred by detailed slips – for whilst the general point of the title is true, with the May 2010 coalition being the UK’s first peacetime coalition in Westminster since before 1939, the title does not use the …

Posted in Books | Also tagged charles kennedy, chris bowers, chris rennard, danny alexander, duncan brack, featured, jasper gerard, matt chorley, ming campbell, nick clegg, paul marshall | 25 Comments

Opinion: The importance of social liberalism

By Sam Barratt | Published 22nd November 2011 - 9:55 am

The debate regarding the importance and roles of ‘social’ and ‘economic’ liberalism can, on occasion, be misrepresented. Whether deliberate or incidental the relationship between the two philosophies can sometimes be presented as discrete, zero-sum options. I believe they should be considered as dialectic.

In The Orange Book, a publication that is almost Frankensteinian in how it’s perceived and what it actually contains, David Laws offers definitions for social and economic liberalism, that broadly serve well in discussion, they are:

economic liberalism

…

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged david howarth, orange book, reinventing the state | 38 Comments

The Independent View: And then there was one… (Unmasked! The only backbench Lib Dem MP 100% loyal to the Coalition)

By Philip Cowley and Mark Stuart | Published 18th November 2011 - 9:45 am

When a quarter of the parliamentary Conservative party rebels, everyone sits up and takes notice. On 24 October, 2011, 81 Conservative MPs defied a three-line whip to vote in favour of an EU referendum: cue a blaze of negative publicity for David Cameron and the Tory party whips.

But a week or so later one-quarter of Lib Dem MPs rebelled, and (almost) no one noticed. In nine separate votes on 1 and 2 November, a total of 14 Lib Dem MPs voted against various aspects of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. The largest …

Posted in News, Parliament, The Independent View | Also tagged featured, legal aid, lorely burt, simon hughes, tom brake, tuition fees, whip | 13 Comments

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