Tag Archives: gareth epps

The Voice

LDVideo: Liberal Democrats: coalition, polls and 2015 election

By The Voice | Tue 22nd January 2013 - 8:55 pm

Today’s BBC Daily Politics looked at the Lib Dems’ electoral fortunes.

In clip 1, they interview Lib Dem peer Lord (Tony) Greaves, former Lib Dem turned Labour councillor James Allie, and Gareth Epps, of the Social Liberal Forum…

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Caron Lindsay

Conference Accreditation Consultation – what Liberal Democrat bloggers are saying

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 19th April 2012 - 5:53 pm

Last Saturday, Federal Conference Committee chair Andrew Wiseman invited responses  in an article on Liberal Democrat Voice from members on the controversial issue of an accreditation system for Conference. Sussex Police had requested that party members would have to submit their identity details and past addresses so that they could be checked out by the Police to keep out people who might cause security issues.

Unsurprisingly, the Liberal Democrat blogosphere has been vocal in response. If there has been a post out there in favour of such a system, then I’ve not been able to find it.

At Liberal England, …

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Posted in Conference and News | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , and | 5 Comments
Stephen Tall

Reading Labour Party leaflet’s “born and bred” racist innuendo: will Labour now apologise and withdraw it?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 7th April 2012 - 12:45 pm

This is the leaflet the Labour Party is delivering through letter-boxes in a ward where the sitting Conservative councillor — Cllr Azam Janjua, a Reading resident for half a century — is facing a Labour opponent, Eileen McElligott. See if you can notice the oh-so-subtle way in which Labour puts its lips together to dog-whistle:

You read that right:

“Eileen McElligott … was born and bred in Reading … She will fight for us here … because she is one of us.”

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Linda Jack

Why Liberal Left?

By Linda Jack | Wed 15th February 2012 - 12:56 pm

My good pal Gareth Epps asked the question last week………..so I thought I would answer it for him. We are at a hugely important juncture as a party – nearly two years in – with little prospect of the Coalition not continuing until 2015 and what appears to be the start of the leadership’s “differentiation” campaign.  Nick Clegg and his aides are spinning the line more and more that we are a “centrist” party – a clear desire to move us from the centre left position we have erstwhile held and which has served us well

…

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Linda Jack

Opinion: What price democracy in the Lib Dems?

By Linda Jack | Thu 2nd February 2012 - 6:02 pm

Over the past 21 months I have had many moments when I have felt close to despair about the behaviour of our parliamentarians. Sometimes, like voting in favour of tuition fees, they can rightly point to the Coalition Agreement – endorsed overwhelmingly – as Nick Clegg observed at the time – by a North Korean like Special Conference. Other times, like voting against party policy on Legal Aid and Welfare Reform – there is no such defence. Last night calls into question the fundamental values and principles of our party, not just in terms of flying in the face of …

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Stephen Tall

Lib Dem MPs set to rebel over ‘back-door’ nuclear power subsidy

By Stephen Tall | Sat 2nd July 2011 - 4:15 pm

‘Liberal Democrats have long opposed any new nuclear construction. Conservatives, by contrast, are committed to allowing the replacement of existing nuclear power stations provided that they are subject to the normal planning process for major projects (under a new National Planning Statement), and also provided that they receive no public subsidy.’

So declares the Coalition Agreement. However, as the Guardian reports, the finance bill due to be debated this coming week introduces a form of subsidy, and it’s attracted opposition among the party:

A large group of Lib Dems are concerned about clause 78 of the bill, which MPs will consider

…

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David Hall-Matthews

Opinion: Interpreting the internal election results

By David Hall-Matthews | Tue 16th November 2010 - 3:57 pm

The bare bones of the internal party election results were set out here on Saturday showing who had been elected by conference reps to the various committees.

The detailed results for the Federal Executive and the Federal Policy Committee, hosted by Colin Rosenstiel, show some revealing trends when compared with previous years’ election results.

This year, in the Federal Executive elections, Evan Harris came top on first preference by a long stretch with 263 votes. Following him was David Rendel (107) and Ramesh Dewan (77) with others on 55. Evan is clearly identified with the progressive, Social Liberal wing …

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Posted in Op-eds and Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged , , , , , , , and | 38 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lib Dem party membership: “10 members joining for each departure”

By Stephen Tall | Fri 9th July 2010 - 11:25 am

With the Labour party claiming an influx of new recruits, Lib Dem parliamentary candidate for Reading East at the last election, Gareth Epps, has written to The Guardian pointing out the Lib Dems too have seen a significant increase in new members:

Your report (7 July) of a “surge” in Labour membership makes claims about recruits from the Liberal Democrats. Labour’s claims are Walter Mittyish. My local Lib Dem party has had its most sustained membership boost since the 1988 merger. Since the election, we have had 10 members joining for each departure. As Labour’s crocodile tears continue over cuts

…

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged and | 96 Comments
Alex Foster

Battle of the emergency motions

By Alex Foster | Wed 9th September 2009 - 4:23 pm

Conference these days includes slots that are left blank when the agenda is published, and that can be filled later by topics that become evident at a later date.

The deadline for – well pretty much everything, actually, including emergency motions, amendments, appeals, questions and so on – was yesterday.

LDV is aware of two emergency motions that have been doing the rounds asking for support. Firstly there’s one insisting that social services remain accountable to local people through local councils. A government paper launched on the 14th July suggested the creation of a national care body to take some …

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