Tag Archives: david steel

David Steel, bombing Greenland and regulating cats

By Mark Pack | Published 8th November 2011 - 3:15 pm

It being over four years since I last read David Steel’s speech to the Liberal Party Assembly of 1976, I thought it was time I did so again. As you do.

And yes, once again, it is the bombing of Greenland and the cats which caught my attention:

Posted in News | Also tagged greenland, history | 4 Comments

LDVideo | Party political broadcasts from the 1960s: Bonham Carter, Thorpe, Grimond & friends

By Stephen Tall | Published 4th September 2011 - 5:25 pm

Round 2 of our trip down PPB memory lane. Yesterday we trawled the 1950s, and today it’s time for the 1960s to take centre-stage…

Liberal Party election broadcast 1964 (with Frank Byers, Mark Bonham Carter, Jeremy Thorpe and Margaret Wingfield — alas, with some sound issues)

(Available on YouTube here.)

Liberal Party election broadcast 1964 (bookended by Jo Grimond, with Alan Talfun Davies, Richard Wainwright, David Steel, John Pardoe, Meddon Bruton, and Arthur Holt)

(Available on YouTube here.)

Posted in YouTube | Also tagged Alan Talfun Davies, Arthur Holt, jeremy thorpe, jo grimond, john pardoe, Margaret Wingfield, Mark Bonham Carter, Meddon Bruton, Richard Wainwright | 1 Comment

LDVideo | Election archive special… the 1980s

By Stephen Tall | Published 21st August 2011 - 5:25 pm

Yesterday was the 1960-70s, today we fast-forward to the 1980s…

1982 Liberal Party political broadcast

(Available on YouTube here.)

1983 election: Party leaders on the campaign trail (incuding Roy Jenkins at 1:05)

Posted in YouTube | Also tagged cyril smith, roy jenkins | 2 Comments

Lords reform: the Liberal Democrat trio announced

By Mark Pack | Published 6th June 2011 - 7:23 am

Over the weekend Mark Valladares blogged about the three Liberal Democrats being appointed to the Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament carrying out pre-legislative scrutiny committee on Lords reform:

From the Lords, representing the constitutional wonk tendency (in a good way), Lord Tyler is the first of the two nominees. Paul has been leading calls for a complete overhaul of the Second Chamber for a very long time and is one of the Party’s foremost constitutional experts…

From the Commons, that rather unusual beast, a former member of the House of Lords, John Thurso. As he has already been abolished once,

…

Posted in News | Also tagged constitutional reform, house of lords, john thurso, lords reform, mark valladares, paddy ashdown, paul tyler, paul walter, ros scott | 12 Comments

Liberal Youth: appealing to Lib Dems everywhere

By Thomas Hemsley | Published 30th May 2011 - 5:23 pm

Conferences are a foundation stone of being a Liberal Democrat. There have been some really huge and important ones – Brighton, 2002, where we laid out a principled position on Iraq; Llandudno, 1981, where Shirley Williams and David Steel spoke passionately in favour of an alliance; Sheffield, 2011, when we opposed the NHS reforms. Conference is the best way for the membership to exert their influence over the leadership. Past leaders, from Steel to Ashdown, from Kennedy to Clegg, have often feared Conference for the skill and passion with which it has put its arguments. And so the tradition of …

Posted in Conference, Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged bonnie greer, charles kennedy, liberal youth, nick clegg, paddy ashdown, shirley williams, tessa munt | Leave a comment

LibLink: Tyler versus Steel on Lords reform

By Mark Pack | Published 22nd May 2011 - 2:03 pm

During the week The Guardian ran an exchange between Liberal Democrats Lord Steel and Tyler – the former Liberal Party leader urging the Lib Dems to drop the party’s long-standing policy (and the Liberal Party’s before that) to introduce elections for the Lords, and Tyler responding.

Here’s a sample:

Steel: I am old enough to recall the defeat of Lords reform proposals through getting bogged down in the Commons in a war of attrition led by Michael Foot and Enoch Powell, and I fear the same may happen to these. There is no public clamour for the changes…

Tyler: Westminster is such an

…

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged constitutional reform, house of lords, lords reform, paul tyler | 5 Comments

House of Lords reform: taking a look at the details

By Mark Pack | Published 18th May 2011 - 7:43 am

Yesterday Nick Clegg unveiled the Government’s proposals for reforming the House of Lords, an idea that David Cameron is on record as fully backing.

The mere idea of introducing elections for half of our Parliament is shocking enough for some (letting the public decide who rules them? what a radical idea) that the details have understandably so far got relatively little attention.

So what are the highlights of them?

First, the Lords will be small – 300. That makes sense given how enormous the combined number of MPs and Lords is in Britain at the moment compared with other democracies …

Posted in News | Also tagged constitutional reform, featured, house of lords, lord ashcroft, lords reform, nick clegg | 15 Comments

Electoral reform news: peers don’t like democracy, but Labour candidate who lost on vote transfers backs AV

By Mark Pack | Published 15th January 2011 - 12:44 pm

From The Independent:

Clegg: peers are holding Government hostage…

In acrimonious clashes, they warned the Deputy Prime Minister that they would fight his proposals every step of the way…

The show-down – described by one participant as “Daniel in the lion’s den” – came at a meeting between Clegg and members of a cross-party group campaigning against the plans. More than 50 peers from all major parties were present, including the former Liberal leader Lord Steel of Aikwood.

Shock news there, that peers who are against elections are against plans to introduce elections – though the presence of David Steel is disappointing.

Meanwhile, the …

Posted in News | Also tagged av referendum, electoral reform, house of lords, parliamentary reform | 10 Comments

Lord Rennard writes… Lord Blackadder, Baldrick, by-elections and reform of the Lords

By Chris Rennard | Published 5th December 2010 - 6:55 pm

The House of Lords debated (again) this week the second reading of David Steel’s Bill to make some very modest and minor reforms to the House of Lords.

I compared the process of by-elections to elect hereditary peers to the campaign run by Lord Blackadder to elect Baldrick in the rotten borough of Dunny on the Wold. David Steel’s Bill would end these by-elections and allow peers to retire voluntarily. A much more fundamental draft Bill for Lords reform is expected early next year.

But this debate showed again how hard it will be to achieve fundamental reform of the House of Lords.

The …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged house of lords, parliamentary reform | 6 Comments

Musings from the Front Bench…

By Bill Bradshaw | Published 22nd July 2010 - 1:20 pm

I have supported the Liberal Party and its successors since the General Election of 1950, although I did not follow a political career. Instead, I was involved in the railway and bus industries before moving into academia at the Universities of Salford and Oxford.

My entry to the House of Lords was a complete surprise. It took place over a two year period, and the process began with an interview with John Harris and Bill Rodgers, the then Chief Whip and Leader in the House respectively. Having been sworn to secrecy, I was asked firstly whether, if appointed, I would promise …

Posted in Parliament | Also tagged guest editor, house of lords, ian hislop, parliamentary reform, transport | Leave a comment

Daily View 2×2: 17 May 2010 (with bonus ‘Prophet Steel’ video)

By Stephen Tall | Published 17th May 2010 - 7:45 am

Happy Monday morning, everyone, and welcome to the first full week of Lib Dem / Conservative coalition government. Let’s get down to the news …

One Big Story

Lib Dem members give overwhelming thumbs-up to coalition government agreement

The Daily Telegraph has a fair-minded report proving that extraordinary things really can happen in the new politics (and in stark contrast to the snarkiness of the Grauniad):

… members voted “over-whelmingly” in support of the deal with no more than a dozen of the 2,000 delegates opposing the deal in a show of hands at the gathering in Birmingham. Speaking after the vote, Mr Clegg said: “It is a big step. There are lots of unknowns, there will be bumps and scrapes along the way”. He said the party’s special conference had taken a “very, very important decision” to approve the coalition “which is utterly new in modern British political history”. .. It is understood the while 100 members had quit the party since the deal was signed – a further 400 had joined.

The conference even earned plaudits from an unlikely source: ConservativeHome.com offered three cheers for the Lib Dems’ commitment to party democracy:

I take my hat off to the Liberal Democrats for the attempt to involve party members – the people who work so hard without expectation of office – in the decision to form a Coalition with the Conservatives. On a number of occasions Clegg met his MPs and party officers in a bid to hear their views and explain what he was doing. Today’s ratification of the deal will help bind the party into the fascinating Cameron-Clegg experiment. What a contrast with the Conservative Party where there has been next to no consultation of the party membership. Coming on top of Team Cameron’s various attempts to dilute Tory members’ role in membership selection it is all very disappointing.

Here’s how the BBC reported the day:

Posted in Daily View | Also tagged andy mayer, coalition, nich starling, nick clegg | 7 Comments

LibLink: David Steel – Why we must make this coalition work

By NewsHound | Published 16th May 2010 - 12:03 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment is Free website, former Liberal party leader Lord (David) Steel offers his reasons for supporting the coalition government of Lib Dems and Conservatives:

We have successfully injected parts of the Lib Dem manifesto into the government programme and outlawed parts of the Tory manifesto, most notably bringing tax reductions to the poor rather than the rich and allowing the electorate itself to improve the voting system in future elections. … Nick Clegg had only one other option as leader – to sit in opposition, watch a minority Tory government struggling with declining sterling and share indices,

…

Posted in LibLink | 12 Comments

David Steel on the last time there was a hung parliament

By NewsHound | Published 7th May 2010 - 6:45 pm

Lord (David) Steel recalled his involvement in the various negotiations during the 1970s, the last time there was an election which produced a hung parliament, in a letter to The Times during the campaign – it seemed worth dusting down in the current circumstances …

Sir,

Your leader today on hung parliaments contained a number of dubious assertions.

First, you say that in February 1974 Mr Heath’s offer of coalition foundered on his refusal to include electoral reform. As a survivor of those discussions I have to say that this was not the most determining factor. One was that even with the

…

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged hung parliament | 4 Comments

Brown’s silence on Megrahi: “absurd” says Clegg, “right” says Steel

By Stephen Tall | Published 24th August 2009 - 1:45 pm

Nick Clegg has today condemned Gordon Brown for issuing no statement following the release on compassionate grounds of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi:

Although the decision to release Megrahi was a Scottish one for which Gordon Brown was not personally responsible, the fallout puts the UK at the centre of an international storm.

“In these circumstances, it is absurd and damaging that the British Prime Minister simply remains silent in the hope that someone else will take the flak.”

He went further on this lunchtime’s BBC Radio 4 World at One, openly criticising the decision of the Scottish Executive, saying, “I find it difficult to accept that someone convicted in a British court of law should be released as he was.”

But speaking on this morning’s BBC Radio 4 Today Programme his predecessor Lord (David) Steel – a former presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament – defended the Prime Minister’s stance:

Posted in News | Also tagged abdelbaset ali al-megrahi, nick clegg, terrorism | 43 Comments

YouTube ‘cos we want to: an SDP special

By Stephen Tall | Published 1st August 2009 - 8:00 am

If the SDP had lived on*, 2009 would have marked its ~~18th~~** 28th birthday – which spurious segue is all the excuse we need to dust off three video clips tracing its rise and fall.

Let’s begin at the beginning, with the explosion of the ‘Gang of Four’ – Roy, David, Shirley and Bill – onto the scene, here holding their first press conference in March 1981:

For a year or more it really did seem as if the SDP might truly break the mould of British politics. But the party was shattered by the results of the June 1983 general election, winning only six seats. Here’s the start of the BBC’s election night results programme.

Posted in YouTube | Also tagged bill rodgers, cheltenham, david owen, guildford, roy jenkins, SDP, shirley williams, spitting image, torbay | 4 Comments

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