Tag Archives: julian huppert

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 | Also tagged connect, jamie matthews, Online politics, tim farron, twitter, victor chamberlain | 3 Comments

Julian Huppert MP writes: promoting innovative science and technology, safeguarding NHS data for research

By Julian Huppert MP | Published 13th December 2011 - 11:00 am

Science and research are absolutely key to our economy, both now and in the future. That’s why I and others have been pressing the Coalition Government to protect the £4.6 billion revenue budget for science and research programs. And we’ve managed more; since January, the Department for Business Innovation and Skills has announced £495 million of investment in capital projects to maximize our research capacity.

This funding is extremely welcome. But it is how this money is spent – not just how many millions are pumped into the economy – which will determine whether the economy recovers and whether we will be …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged life sciences, NHS, privacy, research, technology innovation centre | 3 Comments

Conference gets its wish – drug policy review announced

By Prateek Buch | Published 5th December 2011 - 9:00 am

Liberal Democrats are always looking for distinctive ways to show that the party is making a difference in government – things we can proudly point to and say “look, we made this happen.” This week’s announcement that the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee is to launch a new inquiry into drugs policy is one that activists, MPs and Peers alike can rightly point to as an example of the positive influence Lib Dems have on public policy.

There is now widespread recognition that the UK’s drugs laws are ineffective and expensive, with MPs of all parties signing …

Posted in News | Also tagged drugs, evidence-based policy, science | 7 Comments

PMQs: Miliband misses a golden opportunity

By Paul Walter | Published 9th November 2011 - 1:06 pm

LibDem Julian Huppert started Prime Minister’s Questions with a zinger today. He said that jobs and growth depend on consumer confidence, and asked if, therefore, the PM thinks that telling 25 million people that they have no job security and could be fired tomorrow will help consumer confidence (this refers to the proposal from Tory businessman Adrian Beecroft). David Cameron had no answer but instead, as always, threw his briefing notes at the questioner (metaphorically speaking).

I should also mention, en passant, that Julian asked for suggestions for his first question via Twitter. Good man.

After the MiliCam exchange, I was …

Posted in News, PMQs | Also tagged annette brooke, david cameron, ed miliband, tessa munt, uk border agency | 7 Comments

Jeremy Browne writes… The London Conference on Cyberspace

By Jeremy Browne MP | Published 30th October 2011 - 5:48 pm

In just over a decade, cyberspace has completely changed the way we live and work. Access has grown from 16 million internet users in 1995 to nearly 2 billion today, more than half of whom are in developing countries. On November 1st and 2nd, we will be hosting the London Conference on Cyberspace. The first of its kind, it will be a high profile event attended by the Foreign Secretary, Hillary Clinton, and high level delegates from over sixty countries.

The rapid development of a globally networked world offers enormous opportunities as well as challenges. When …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged cyber warfare, hillary clinton | 1 Comment

Tim Farron: good speech, but wrong message

By Mark Pack | Published 27th October 2011 - 8:54 am

Sometimes the toughest speaking gigs for MPs is when they are talking to a friendly audience – but something interesting is happening behind them. So it was a few months ago with Julian Huppert talking to Putney Liberal Democrats. Very thoughtful speech, well received by the members and supporters present – but Julian had to struggle to avoid being upstaged by the cute, preening, attention-seeking cat paddling back and forth behind him.

When Tim Farron came to speak to Haringey Liberal Democrats last night, there was no cat to distract – but instead the minor drama of the stalwart member who …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged caron lindsay, danny alexander, featured, jonathan calder, nick clegg, tim farron | 21 Comments

Personal Demographics Service: Department of Health

By Mark Pack | Published 16th October 2011 - 9:50 am

I’ve blogged before about some of the security issues around the NHS’s Personal Demographics Service – a mammoth database with 80,000,000 personal records in it, yet with 700,000 people granted access to it – and with such limited auditing systems that experts have concluded it is “incredibly difficult if not impossible” to detect or trace misuse of the data.

So it was good to see Julian Huppert take up with issue with a Parliamentary question, asking the Department of Health what assessments it has made of how adequate the safeguards in the PDS really are at preventing illegal access to …

Posted in News | Also tagged NHS, personal demographics service, simon burns | 4 Comments

Opinion: A real opportunity to Make Justice Work

By Linda Jack | Published 7th October 2011 - 11:53 am

One of the highlights of conference for me was the breakfast roundtable organised by Make Justice Work. As conference goers and fringe organisers will know, getting one MP along is a challenge, managing to attract three must be close to a record! So it was a demonstration of the commitment our party has to reforming the criminal justice system that Justice minister Tom McNally, chair of the Justice Select Committee Alan Beith and member of the Home Affairs Select Committee Julian Huppert, all attended.

For those of you who don’t know the organisation, it was founded by Roma Hooper to …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged alan beith, justice, lord mcnally, make justice work, peter oborne, roma hooper | 1 Comment

Opinion: Will the Lib Dems stand up for creative industries?

By Laura Willoughby | Published 18th September 2011 - 4:50 pm

A Labour friend of mine was smugly telling me about last week’s launch of the Labour Creative Industries Network. Much of this reminded me of their ‘Cool Britannia’ efforts circa 1997.

However, it also got me thinking about how the creative industries see us. We too have some nice words about creative businesses on our website – but do we really have a sense of how we want to support and promote this economically and culturally important sector? The DCMS is the only department where Lib Dems have no ministerial presence. There is a hair’s breadth in arts policy between …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged bridget fox, creative industries, digital economy act, media | 7 Comments

Blog of the Year Awards 2011: The Winners #LDBOTY

By Helen Duffett | Published 17th September 2011 - 10:35 pm

What’s loosely termed the awards “ceremony” for the 2011 Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year Awards has just drawn to a glittering close. As the last firework fades in Birmingham’s night sky, I’m delighted to announce the winners:

Posted in Best of the blogs | Also tagged alex wilcock, blog of the year awards, mike smithson, nick thornsby, richard morris, stephen williams | 1 Comment

The 7 Lib Dem MPs unaffected by the Boundary Commission proposals

By Stephen Tall | Published 13th September 2011 - 6:20 pm

The last 24 hours’ political news has been dominated by the Boundary Commission for England’s proposals for new parliamentary constituencies — and in particular the reduction from 533 to 502 in accordance with the Coalition Agreement to reduce the size of the House of Commons.

I’m a self-confessed politics geek, so I find this stuff interesting. But I was surprised that it should be the lead news item on BBC Radio 4′s Today Programme this morning — does the public care as much as us anoraks? I doubt it.

True, some members of the public will have particular concerns about …

Posted in News | Also tagged bob russell, mark pack, parliamentary boundaries, parliamentary boundary review, simon wright, stephen lloyd | 25 Comments

“Nick Clegg to vote against abortion counselling law”

By Mark Pack | Published 6th September 2011 - 11:03 pm

So reports The Guardian:

Nick Clegg is on Wednesday planning to vote against a cross-party amendment, tabled by socially conservative MPs, that would strip abortion providers of their counselling role.

In the most high-profile parliamentary debate on abortion since the general election, the deputy prime minister will lead a series of Liberal Democrat and Tory ministers into the no lobby. They will be joined by most Labour MPs in voting against the amendment tabled by Nadine Dorries, a Tory backbencher, and Frank Field, Labour’s former welfare reform minister…

A rival amendment, tabled by the Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert, has also been accepted

…

Posted in News | Also tagged frank field, nadine dorries, nick clegg | 3 Comments

Opinion: Digital Economy Act – The fight isn’t over

By Duncan Stott | Published 4th August 2011 - 9:23 am

It’s difficult to quantify the mess the Labour government left us in. Sure, the £158,000,000,000 annual deficit they left behind was one big quantity. But there were also the thousands of children being held in detention, our civil liberties in tatters, university finances out of control, record low levels of house building… the list seems endless.

But seemingly this wasn’t enough for Labour. In their dying breath they created yet another mess for the next government to sort. The Digital Economy Bill was forced through Parliament in its last week before recessing for the General Election campaign.

Grassroots Lib Dems made their …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged bridget fox, digital economy act, vince cable | 2 Comments

Top 10 tweeting MPs: congratulations to Lib Dem @julianhuppert in at No. 6!

By Stephen Tall | Published 31st July 2011 - 2:20 pm

Who are the top 10 Twitterers in the House of Commons? That’s the question the Mail on Sunday answers today, following a survey by Westminster Public Affairs.

The list looks not at number of followers, but at the volume of tweets each MP has sent out. Heading the list is Labour’s Kerry McCarthy with well over 27,000 tweets. Cambridge’s Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert — elected to Parliament just last year — comes in at number six, having sent over 10,000 tweets, and now with over 4,000 followers.

My Co-Editor Mark Pack has compiled a …

Posted in News | Also tagged brian binley, charles kennedy, mark pack, olly kendall, twitter | Leave a comment

LDVideo: Clegg and Huppert on phone-hacking

By Nick Thornsby | Published 22nd July 2011 - 11:03 am

Below you can see a video produced by the national party of Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge, Julian Huppert, talking to the deputy prime minister about the phone-hacking scandal.

It is reminiscent of the videos produced by the party last December of former Lib Dem MP Evan Harris talking to Nick Clegg about tuition fees – though this is much shorter. I personally think there is a lot of value in such videos, particularly when it comes to the party communicating with its members.

You can watch the video above, or on YouTube here.

Posted in YouTube | Also tagged news international, nick clegg | 4 Comments

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