The Minister in charge of secret courts in the Commons, Ken Clarke, made an opening statement in the debate which made it clear that the Coalition Government does not accept the amendments proposed by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, some of which were passed by the Lords. It is still not clear whether the Coalition is going to accept even the limited number of amendments which were passed by the Lords.

What is clear is that the coalition is determined to enact this “unnecessary, unfair and unbalanced” Bill. So it is also clear that the overwhelming rejection of the illiberal and unnecessary secret courts in Part II of the Justice and Security Bill at our Party Conference in September is being ignored by our party leadership.

This Bill would be a terrible blow to our country’s proud history of fair trials and it runs a coach and horses through our core values. It is therefore a significant party problem for Liberal Democrats.

The overwhelming view of Liberal Democrat members is that this Bill is an affront to our values. Our core values are fairness, freedom and openness, and we have democratic structures to ensure they are delivered.

Since Conference voted against the attack on open justice contained in the Bill, Martin Tod and I, along with many others, have been campaigning to see that our core values are delivered in this case. We have had a number of meetings with very senior party members and Ministers. We have been given clear advice as to how secret courts can be stopped.

Given Labour’s weakness on secret courts, the only way secret courts can be stopped is at the Quad. Sadly, as yet, despite numerous requests, Nick Clegg has refused to meet with us to discuss the Bill, and the Liberal Democrat response to it.

We are therefore left with few options open to us. So we are now asking for your support for a further motion for Conference. This calls for the policy decision from September’s Conference to be implemented. If it is not implemented, we are calling for a debate at the next Party Conference to consider an appropriate response in line with the Constitution.

This is difficult territory for every Liberal Democrat. However, we believe standing up for our core values is vitally important, particularly when we are in government. We believe that if the party’s policies are not implemented then the appropriate response needs to be debated by Conference.

If you agree with us that our Liberal Democrat core values of fairness, freedom and openness are fundamentally undermined by Part II of the Justice and Security Bill then please support the motion. Please email me or Martin confirming you are an elected Federal Conference rep and providing your name, local party, and membership number. Many thanks.

Spring Conference motion
Conference notes:
- The motion “No Government Above the Law – the Justice and Security Bill” passed overwhelmingly at the Liberal Democrat Federal Conference in September 2012 called for:
o Part II of the Justice and Security Bill to be withdrawn or defeated by Liberal Democrat parliamentarians; and
o Public Interest Immunity to be put into legislation;
- That the amendment calling for “CMPs to be used only as a last resort and in cases that would otherwise be incapable of being tried” was rejected overwhelmingly by the Liberal Democrat Conference;
- That Liberal Democrat peers formed the majority of those voting in the Lords to remove secret courts from the Justice and Security Bill;
- The Liberal Democrat party’s unique characteristic is that party members decide policy at Federal Conference;
- That despite the above, the government’s intention as stated by Ken Clarke in the Commons on 18th December 2012 is to pursue enactment of Part II of the Justice and Security Bill including some, but not all, of the amendments proposed by the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

Conference believes:
- That the measures in Part II of the Justice and Security Bill will mean the courts system of the United Kingdom will provide neither justice nor security in cases involving allegations against the state of the most serious nature including torture, rendition, negligence of armed forces, malicious prosecution and false imprisonment;
- That the proposals in the Justice and Security Bill are directly contradictory to the core values and stated purpose of the Liberal Democrat party as enshrined in the Preamble to the Constitution, namely to “build and safeguard a fair, free and open society”;
- That Part II of the Justice and Security Bill should be withdrawn immediately;
- That active support for the proposals contained in Part II of the Justice and Security Bill in opposition to agreed party policy is tantamount to conduct evidencing material disagreement with the fundamental values and objectives of the Party.

Conference calls for:
- In the event that Part II of the Justice and Security Bill is not withdrawn in accordance with the above, the agenda of the next Federal Conference shall include a debate to consider sanctions or other measures in accordance with the Constitution;
- A pledge to repeal Part II of the Justice and Security Act (if so enacted) to be included in the Liberal Democrat manifesto for the next General Election.

Under the Bill, the state will be able to kick anyone bringing a case against them out of court simply by claiming ‘national security’ is at risk – a claim which has been used to cover up Government involvement in torture and rendition all too often during the ‘War on Terror’.

Politicians will be able to shut the courtroom doors to press and public alike, and present one-sided evidence to the judge, free of effective challenge. Worst of all, in a case between the citizen and the state, the citizen could lose without even knowing why, or being able to see what evidence had been used against them. This is surely a red line in our justice system which must not be crossed.

Well-respected ministers have given reassurances that this Bill will not be used to cover up anything that would previously have been made public, and that it will only be used in a miniscule number of cases, but it is simply impossible for them to ensure that future governments will keep to these promises.

The fact is that this Bill will enable ministers to push a wide range of cases – from victims of state torture to soldiers who have suffered as a result of Government negligence – into secret courts, where it will be much easier for the state to win and to avoid airing its dirty laundry in public.

Just over a year ago, Nick Clegg rightly said, “You shouldn’t trust any government – including this one.” It would be wise to heed his advice, and to ignore the siren calls of Ken Clarke, who asks people to back this Bill on the grounds that he himself is “an instinctive liberal”. What is needed is close scrutiny of this Bill, and what it would allow. And what must always be at the forefront of our minds is when deciding whether or not to back it is what it would allow our politicians and officials to do – not what it is they say they intend to do with it.

It is entirely possible that this Bill is a genuine attempt to shine a light into the dark recesses of the state, but the fact is that that it would in fact allow the government to do the opposite, throwing a shroud of secrecy over a wide range of civil court proceedings. The Government needs to go back to the drawing board on this one – a vote in favour of the motion as tabled on Tuesday would be a valuable step towards this.

‘The Independent View‘ is a slot on Lib Dem Voice which allows those from beyond the party to contribute to debates we believe are of interest to LDV’s readers. Please email voice@libdemvoice.org if you are interested in contributing.

* Clare Algar is the Executive Director of Reprieve, a human rights NGO.

So, have we strengthened the side for the second half of the season or left gaping holes in our defence?

Well, we have managed to hold on to all our big players – Cable, Alexander, Davey and Moore – and, despite losing his place to Alexander after his suspension early in the season, we now have a fighting fit Laws back and ready for selection, albeit not in his favoured position.

However, it appears that after a strong first half showing Clarke’s loan has come to an end. He’ll spend the second half stomping around in the Conservatives’ technical area.

Without much in the transfer kitty, Clegg has had to operate a one-in-one-out transfer policy. And so, in order to refresh his squad he’s had to let go of some consistent performers in Harvey and Stunell, and let Burstow and Teather get back to the training ground to make sure they are fit for selection next season.

But some fresh talent has come in the form of impressive young striker Swinson and solid midfielder Brake, both of whom caught the eye of the scouts early in the season and will relish their shot at the first team.

He’s also found room to bring in the veteran defender Foster to make sure there is experience as well as youth in his signings.

But it’s not just some of the faces that are changing. For the second half of the season Clegg will be fielding a new formation.

Browne has been brought into a more central role, Lamb moves into the position he mastered last season, Heath gets a specific role preventing own goals, while it is hoped Featherstone will benefit from some international experience.

All in all, it’s a tinkering of the first team rather than an overhaul of the squad, with some promising signings and some sad departures. Let’s see how they perform in the second half of the season.

Those transfers in full:

In: Laws (Education and Cabinet Office), Swinson (BIS), Foster (DCLG), Brake (Deputy Leader of the House), Browne (FCO to Home), Lamb (BIS to Health), Heath (Deputy Leader of the House to Defra), Featherstone (Home/Equalities to International Development).

Out: Burstow, Teather, Harvey, Stunell, Clarke (loan finishes).

Lib Dem Lords Thomas, Carlile, Clement Jones and Phillips have a set of amendments down for debate tomorrow to put right what Ken Clarke hasn’t got right in his zeal to end the so-called ‘compensation culture’. The amendments look to tighten up and improve the plans to ban so-called ‘referral fees’ in personal injury cases. Its these fees which are behind ambulance-chasing lawyers encouraging people to put in spurious claims.

As picked up by Kiran Stacey in the FT, the Liberal Democrat peers have tabled amendments to ban law firms from (among other things) sending those annoying unsolicited spam texts and from advertising in hospitals. They also seek to end the reprehensible practice of insurers forcing accident victims to settle for low-level damages without letting them speak to a lawyer, and to protect legitimate routes to justice for genuine accident victims.

There’s a risk the amendments will get squeezed out due to lack of time unless the Lib Dem peers insist on pushing the issue. They should do. It’s an important issue in its own right, the changes will help ensure the legal system is there to help those in need rather than clogged up by profiteers pursuing dodgy claims – and it’s a popular cause with the public to boot.

Here’s hoping tomorrow brings goods news from the Liberal Democrat team in the Lords…

Full disclosure: One of the clients of the company that I work for in my day job, National Accident Helpline, has an interest in these issues.

* Mark Pack has written 101 Ways To Win An Election and produces a monthly newsletter about the Liberal Democrats.

The list of nine nominees appears below. These were sought from Lib Dem members via our most recent survey; 233 nominations were submitted, and each of those short-listed needed to clear a threshold of five.

To vote, please use the poll on the right-hand side of the page.

This year’s shortlist for Liberal Voice of the Year is as follows

(in alphabetical order):

Mohamed Bouazizi

Mohamed Bouazizi was a 26 year-old Tunisian who set himself on fire in protest at police and government abuse, and died in January 2011. His act of suicide led to protests that triggered the overthrow of President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, and to the Arab Spring.

Kenneth Clarke

Ken Clarke, Justice Minister in the Coalition Government, is a Tory MP frequently referred to as the sixth Lib Dem cabinet minister for his committed belief to prison rehabilitation and due legal process.

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Hillary Rodham Clinton, US Secretary of State, has helped lead the US response to the Arab uprising, and been a consistent and vocal advocate for the empowerment and welfare of women and girls worldwide.

Nick Davies and The Guardian

Nick Davies is an investigative journalist for The Guardian whose dogged pursuit of the British press’s illegal activities, including phone-hacking, sparked the closure of the News of the World and the Leveson Inquiry into media standards.

Hugh Grant and the Hacked Off campaign

The combination of Hugh Grant and the Hacked Off group are vigorously campaigning for a cleaned-up British press and improved media standards.

Mark Littlewood

Mark Littlewood, a former head of media for the Lib Dems, campaigns for market reforms in his non-partisan role as Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs.

Barack Obama

Barack Obama, US President, brought home all troops from Iraq in October, took a leading role in the overthrow of Gaddafi’s Libyan government, and ordered the successful assassination of Osama bin Laden.

The Occupy Movement

The Occupy Movement, an international protest group primarily directed against economic and social inequality, currently lists 2,562 Occupy communities worldwide.

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese political activist who has openly challenged the Chinese Government’s stance on democracy and human rights.

To vote, please use the poll on the right-hand side of the page. And please feel free to use the comments thread to debate the relative merits of the short-listed Liberal Voice of the Year candidates …

NB: we have looked at options for running the poll using preferential voting rather than first-past-the-post. However, those which we have looked at have significant issues (eg, limited number of voters, no blocking to prevent repeat voting). We’ll continue to look for ways to enable a fairer voting system for Voice polls.

Previous winners of the LDV Liberal Voice of the Year award:

2010: Aung San Suu Kyi, campaigner against political abuse in Burma.

2009: Peter Tatchell, international human rights campaigner.

2008: Campaigners on behalf of Jean Charles de Menezes (Justice4Jean.org) and Stockwell Shooting Inquest Jury.

2007: Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty.

* Stephen Tall is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, a Research Associate for the liberal think-tank CentreForum, and also writes at his own site, The Collected Stephen Tall.

But the Bill poses other profound challenges to those concerned with social justice and evidence-based policy making. In particular, last week Kenneth Clarke introduced a late amendment to the Bill that will criminalise squatting of all residential buildings. While this was ostensibly in response to the consultation that has been running over the summer, it has been clear from the outset that the Conservative component of the Government wanted policy to head in the direction of criminalisation. Inconveniently, those who responded to the consultation were by no means unanimous in their support for extending criminalisation. But it looks like that won’t stand in the way. The Government believes it has a tabloid-fuelled tailwind behind it on this one.

Broadly speaking, at the moment it is a criminal offence to squat someone’s home or to squat a property for which there is a “protected intending occupier” (that is, roughly, an identified person who is about to move in). It is not a criminal offence to squat an empty property. But it can become a criminal offence once the owner of the empty property obtains a possession order and the squatter then refuses to leave.

Over the course of the consultation period Government statements have persisted in misunderstanding or misrepresenting the law in order to argue that change is necessary to make squatting someone’s home a criminal offence. They have been publicly criticised by leading housing lawyers for doing this. It is just one example of a rather cavalier approach to evidence and accuracy (I discussed this further on my blog.) These criticisms have been dismissed or ignored.

The approach throughout has been a bit of a smokescreen. By preying on fears that we’re talking mainly about squatters moving in on homeowners while they’ve nipped out to the supermarket for an hour the Government has moved forward an agenda to extend the criminal law to cover all residential buildings. As Crispin Blunt notes in his foreword to the report on the consultation, the criminal law at the moment isn’t a help to “residential property owners, including landlords, local authorities and second home owners”. This isn’t about homeowners being terrorised. It’s about organisations and individuals who are holding properties empty. And the majority of squatting is of such empty or disused properties. The punishment if convicted of the proposed crime of squatting is a prison term of up to 51 weeks and/or a fine of £5,000.

Why is this a problem? Because the available evidence suggests that squatters are some of the most vulnerable people in society (see, most recently, here). Many are single homeless people who have sought assistance from local authorities but, although recognised as homeless, are not in priority need and therefore are not entitled to social housing. They have often tried to access hostel accommodation but are unable to. Many squat as an alternative to sleeping rough or after a period of rough sleeping. It is a last resort. The incidence of vulnerabilities such as physical and mental ill health is high among squatters. Many are relatively young.

Squatting is a symptom. It is a symptom of the broader shortage of housing and gaps in welfare and support systems. The housing safety net has always been at its weakest for single people. And it is increasingly threadbare.  What purpose will criminalising this population serve?

Under the current system it can undoubtedly take time and effort to regain possession of a squatted property. Some responses to the consultation very sensibly suggested we should try to understand better why the currently law isn’t effective before legislating further. Others noted that current failings are as much about whether the Police have the knowledge and the resources to enforce the criminal law and whether the resources are available in the courts to process the cases. Changing the law so that a larger proportion of squatting activities are criminal isn’t going to solve those problems. Indeed, it seems likely they are only going to get worse.

But criminalising squatting will most likely result in some very vulnerable people having to cope with life with a criminal record. It will most likely lead to an increase in rough sleeping as people seek to avoid the risk of being arrested. And it will most likely lead to even more precarious living. You’ll probably be safe from prosecution if you’re sleeping under a bridge, in shed or in a hedge because they won’t constitute “residential buildings” under the terms of the proposed amendment. But where’s the justice in that?

Alex Marsh is a member of Bristol North Liberal Democrats

While I enjoyed the Lib Dem conference, I don’t think the journalists did. Whenever I passed a well-known TV presenter, they had a face like thunder. They were looking for factionalism and controversy, but all they found was Lib Dems facing up to a difficult situation with determination and loyalty. That makes dull TV, so they must have been tearing their hair out.

The Tory conference was more entertaining.

Theresa May’s remark about cats, and the more recent problems of Liam Fox, are uncomfortable for the Tory party, but they aren’t a fundamental problem for Cameron. A couple of months ago, some were suggesting May as a possible future leadership contender, and Fox too. To varying degrees, both are weakened, and that will ease pressure on Cameron’s right flank.

Of course, a public spat between the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary is hardly good news for the Tories, but it doesn’t undermine their core message: that you can’t fix a deficit with a bigger deficit. Much more serious for the Tories, and for us, is the slow motion car crash that is the Euro.

With the US economy faltering despite its Keynesian stimulus, it’s not surprising the UK has had anaemic growth, but if the Euro collapse does lead to a repeat of the Great Recession, the Coalition may get the blame. However, this will only happen if there is a credible opposition.

Labour’s problem was less a poor speech by Ed Miliband, or the jeering at Tony Blair’s name, but an underlying problem. After a decade of healthy growth, the western world is facing a decade of retrenchment. No-one believes we can return to the days when a Labour government ran a deficit in a boom, and could throw money at public services like confetti.
So if Labour cannot credibly go into the next election promising more spending, what can they promise? If it’s more efficiency in the way our taxes are spent, will anyone believe them?

If they’d been out of power a decade, their members (and the unions) might have accepted the idea of a new “iron chancellor”. But would that work? Look at what the last Labour “iron chancellor” ended up doing.

Their conference was a chance for Labour to start to answer that question. But Ed Miliband’s attempt, arguing for a government that picks ‘good’ and ‘bad’ companies, only reminds us of past government failure to interfere in business. Would a Labour government succeed in using policy to encourage innovative wealth creators, or would this be another disastrous attempt to ‘pick winners’?

What Labour desperately needs is to distance itself from the mistakes that contributed to the current deficit. Blaming the bankers isn’t enough. Deep down, even the most ardent Labour supporter must know that it wasn’t just the banks fault: that Labour overspent, and that much of the pain we’ll suffer is down to a false assumption that the boom would go on forever, so they could carry on overspending forever.

Labour don’t seem to have a problem with the ‘sorry’ word. They’ve apologised for Iraq, for not regulating the bankers, they’ve even apologised for Tony Blair. But they seem incapable of admitting, even to themselves, that they overspent. And until they do, how can anyone believe they wouldn’t do so again?

My guess is this can only begin to happen if Labour ditch Ed Balls, but I can’t see that happening any time soon.

Another politician would realise he was in a hole, and stop digging. But Ed Balls’ political credibility is so tied to that of Gordon Brown, and to running a deficit in a boom, he can’t help himself.

Every time Ed Balls argues for a cut in VAT, calling it a “plan for growth”, many voters must be thinking: ‘Do Labour think we’re stupid? After their overspending got us into this mess, how dare they claim increasing the deficit will get us out of it?’

In the days following Sir Paul Stephenson’s appointment as Commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police, Kit Malthouse, chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, was reportedly going around telling people that they (the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson and himself) had got the man they wanted. They had turned down the fiercely independent and outspoken Sir Hugh Orde, who had demonstrated outstanding leadership, sure-footedness and political adeptness as Chief Constable of Northern Ireland, in favour of ‘a safe pair of hands’, also known as someone who was not going to give them any trouble – or so they thought.

Unfortunately, Sir Paul’s low-key, traditional British bobby “I don’t want any trouble” approach, did not wash in the ego-infested upper echelons of the UK’s biggest police force. The Metropolitan Police has four Assistant Commissioners and a Deputy, all of whom hold the equivalent rank of a Chief Constable, the officer in charge of other police Forces. They are powerful individuals, each with their own empire and reputations to defend, all fighting for their slice of the corporate resources cake and all with an eye on higher office. It takes a very strong individual to hold the ring. It is simply not good enough to take your senior colleagues’ word for it in this kind of environment, when mistakes or oversights within their own departments, if discovered, can have serious consequences for the Assistant Commissioners concerned. An aggressive, intrusive, challenging and sceptical approach has to be taken or you end-up having to take the fall yourself.

Sir Paul should have asked more probing questions about the Met’s phone hacking investigation. He should have refused to agree to the employment of former News of the Word Deputy Editor, Neil Wallis, as a consultant to the Met whilst his force was investigating the same paper. He certainly should not have been wining and dining senior executives from the News International during that investigation. To cap it all, in the same week that the Justice Minister Kenneth Clarke was distinguishing acceptable corporate hospitality from corruption, it was revealed that Stephenson had accepted hospitality that appeared to fall into Clarke’s unacceptable bracket.

The last Commissioner to hold office for the full term, Sir John (now Lord) Stephens, used an ‘iron fist’ approach towards his senior colleagues. It won him few friends around the Management Board table but history will show that his term was, in many ways, a success. Sir Ian Blair followed with the best of intentions to change the culture of the Met but he failed to take his senior colleagues with him. His attempts to persuade, and when they failed, to isolate and ostracise senior colleagues, also failed. Ian Blair’s lack of grip was most pointedly illustrated when one of his Assistant Commissioners, Andy Hayman (now a columnist for News International), told journalists within hours that he believed the police had shot the wrong man at Stockwell but, according to the official record, he did not tell the Commissioner until the following day. Questions were also raised about contracts awarded by the Met to a company where one of the directors was Blair’s skiing partner. In the end, it was the Mayor of London’s lack of confidence in Blair that was blamed for his resignation as Commissioner.

The dilemma for politicians is that the Met needs a very strong, independent-minded leader who will not take any nonsense from anyone, including his or her political masters. What I believe recent history shows, is that without such a tough leader at the helm, the Metropolitan Police will continue to drift onto the rocks.

There was no prospect of Ken Clarke having one his dozes at PMQs today, that’s for sure. Ed Miliband loudly said that David Cameron had “torn up” Clarke’s sentencing plans. Perhaps he protesteth-ed a little too much, even saying that he thought the opposition to the 50% discount for guilty pleas was “understandable”.

Cameron leapt on this, quoting the shadow justice secretary as saying the sentencing proposals were a “perfectly sensible vision”. He also said that Labour had introduced the discount system (at 33%) in the first place. “Why the sudden U turn?” he asked.

Igoring that, Miliband went onto the NHS, leaving the sentencing debate oddly curtailed.

But Cameron was having none of it, saying Miliband had been “found guilty” on the subject of sentencing. He accused him of jumping on bandwagons and said “Bandwagon Number one” (on sentencing) had “hit the buffers” so Miliband had debanded onto the health bandwagon, which Cameron called “Bandwagon Two”. Perhaps he should have called them “B1″ and “B2″ like on “Bananas in pyjamas”. (Apologies for that “Watch with Father” digression).

Safely at the controls of “Bandwagon Two”, Miliband said the health reforms were “a mess”. Cameron quoted the Shadow Health Secretary saying that the health reform listening exercise was “good government”. Miliband quoted Cameron from before the election, talking to the Royal College of Nursing saying there would be “no more top down reorganizations”.

Cameron ignored that and said that the same Royal College of Nursing welcomed his speech yesterday and that the government was giving more funding to the health service while Labour want to cut it. He also threw in Wales (again) for good measure, saying waiting lists are up there – the only bit “of the health service which Labour control”.

There was then a golden Pot/Kettle moment. Or should I say black pot/kettle moment? Ed Miliband said Cameron is “completely shameless and will saying anything”. There was much roaring from the Tory benches.

Why did Cameron scrap 18 week waiting times as a goal? – it’s up 69% – Miliband asked. Cameron then accused Miliband of misleading the Commons last week. There was a sharp intake of breath from Erskine May wonks. The Speaker rose to ask the PM to withdraw that accusation. Cameron didn’t, but said he meant that Miliband made “interesting use of the facts”.

Miliband said Cameron was rattled and said he has the wrong values, and therefore wanted to bring in a “free market free-for-all” into the NHS. “He’s been found out” he said, ending with aplomb: “You can’t trust the Tories on the NHS”. So that was Miliband’s soundbite, safely delivered.

Cameron on the other hand wanted to emphasise that Ed Miliband is a “weak leader”. He used the phrase “weak leadership” twice. You can’t say the two of them don’t follow the polling and focus groups.

Other snippets were:

• RESEARCHER WATCH – “The median 18 week waiting time is down”, said Cameron. Well done to the researcher who dredged that up. It’s the first time I’ve heard a politician use the term “median”.

• Annette Brooke (LibDem) brought up the pension age proposal for women, asking Cameron to review it. No, said Cameron. Lindsay Roy (Lab) asked about the same subject.

• Tom Watson (Lab) claimed that there was evidence of more serious hacking by newspapers which is being “covered up”.

• Gareth Johnson (Con) asked about the report which says IVF treatment on the NHS is being differently dispensed by different primary care trusts. Cameron said the Deputy Chief Excutive of the NHS is ending a letter to all trusts to remind them of the guidelines on this.

One in six people in the world have no access to clean water. 2.5 billion are without clean sanitation and 1.5 million die every year from water contamination.

The report presented to the summit found that there are three main causes of water pollution: industry, agriculture and sewage. In developing countries 70% of industrial waste is dumped untreated into water. The most common source of water pollution, however, is faecal matter.

One of the Millennium Development Goals is to halve the number of people without access to clean water by 2015.

If, like the Defence Secretary Liam Fox, you think that the government should worry less about aid; if you think that the beginning and end of political priorities should be our own domestic self interest then these facts probably don’t interest you.

But for anyone who hates suffering and believes we should care about others then this situation demands urgent action.

The joint Assembly called for:

• more boreholes in villages and shanty towns with rising populations
• effective medical solutions, like chlorine tablets to combat epidemics including cholera, that are linked to polluted water
• EU and ACP countries should prevent industry, deforestation, mining, chemical production and extensive use of pesticides from affecting water quality – polluters should pay.

There is no way around a financial cost to the first two action points. They are good examples of how aid spending can do real good. The third bullet point requires us to place restrictions and costs on the activities of companies that are usually western, large and influential in our own countries as well as the developing world. Shareholders of a western mining company may well kick back if we support regulations that curtail how they pursue projects. But we should simply require that they observe the similar standards abroad as we would expect in our own country. A company dumping waste into the water supply here would be prosecuted. The same should happen in the developing world. We ask this not because we are against companies making profits but because the lives of children matter and more than justify a marginal curtailing of profit.

The EU has pledged 200 million euros (equivalent to less than 40 cents from each European citizen) for action on clean water by 2013. These funds will be used to develop clean water supply and sanitation and help establish strong water governance in the countries where these problems are most urgent. That kind of action should make us all proud to be Europeans.

There are of course numerous arguments that this kind of action serves our enlightened self-interest: spreading our influence, creating opportunities for some of our companies and so on. But you would have to have no soul to need those arguments to persuade you that saving lives of people who lack water was a good thing to do.

This issue, and the summit in particular, received no coverage in the mainstream UK media. In the last fortnight our airwaves have been filled with super-injunctions and Twitter, Ken Clarke’s statement that some rapes are more serious than others and the latest instalment on whether or not GPs will become commissioners of services. All those issues are important but it is disappointing that the issue of so many preventable deaths and action about it could not receive some attention.

There is the Jean-Jacques Rousseau tradition of political philosophy (“man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains”) that holds that naturally we have what we need to live and it is the way we have constructed our societies that deprives some people of their basic needs. In relation to clean water, that must be right. Likewise the Judaeo-Christian religions hold that we have been provided by the world’s Creator with everything we need to live and if we lack a resource like water it is because men have deprived each other of it.

An important debate for the twenty-first century is whether the idea of fundamental inalienable rights applies only to legal and political rights (free speech, fair trials, elected legislatures, etc) or whether it should also apply to some social and economic values such as a right to education or to basic medical care. It seems to me that clean drinking water should be regarded as an absolute entitlement of every human being.

Antony Hook is Vice-Chair of the Liberal Democrat European Group.

When the Prime Minister has to use the excuse “I haven’t heard the interview” and repeat a standard spiel on government policy, then you know things are serious. It’s the Prime Ministerial equivalent of the old TV Test Card. After Clarke’s non-answering of his phone, David Cameron had to walk naked into the Commons chamber (to paraphrase Aneurin Bevan). What a mess.

You can read the full Clarke interview here. It’s quite painful. Full marks to Victoria Derbyshire on Five Live for getting Ken Clarke on the ropes. You can see what he was trying to say. He just got himself into an awful pickle trying to say it. …And on the same day that the Home Secretary got a roasting from the police. Oh dear.

It is interesting that Ed Miliband seems to have nicked part of his script from Victoria Derbyshire: (The policy) “could mean that rapists spend as little as 15 months in prison.”

Cameron finally found what he thought was a way out by saying Miliband would have to wait for the consultation on sentencing. But there is a pattern emerging here, as Miliband highlighted: “We are getting used to this. As we saw on health, when there is a terrible policy the Prime Minister just hides behind the consultation.”

The Miliband had a bit of a field day: “The judges are saying the policy is wrong, End Violence Against Women is saying that it is the wrong policy, and his own Victims Commissioner says that the policy is “bonkers”.”

Cameron tried hard. But it is difficult not to conclude that Miliband had his best PMQs today, greatly aided by one Ken Clarke.

Other snippets were:

• Sir Alan Beith (LibDem) asked whether people will be given bank shares when they are denationalized, as suggested by Stephen Williams (LibDem) and supported by The Sun.
• Cameron has never met Mark Britnell, an alleged Prime Ministerial adviser on health. Indeed, Mark Britnell has never advised this government. He advised the Labour government. Cameron must have been a bit upset that that zinger was knocked down into the bowels of PMQs by Clarke.

Today it is Andrew Reeves, who blogs at http://andrewrunning.blogspot.com.

1. What’s your formative political memory?
In 1984 Ken Clarke gave me an award at a thank you party for delivering leaflets for him. In front of the 200+ people there he also asked me if I wanted to join the party – and in front of them all I said no! I was pleased he’d won but said that the more I had got to know the party I realised why I couldn’t. He was somewhat embarrassed!

2. When did you start blogging?
Tuesday 15 May 2007.

3. Why did you start blogging?
I worked for Lynne Featherstone from just after the 2005 general election until the end of 2006, before becoming one of the two London Campaigns Officers. I was amazed Lynne found time to write her own blog posts so this was my initial inspiration. I also signed up to run the Great North Run in 2007 and so wanted to use it for a training diary.

4. What five words would you use to describe your blog?
I cheated here, I asked some friends for their five words – here is a selection: friendly, personal, prolific, timely, political, caring, liberal, sharp, punchy, researched, readable, passionate and straight-talking.

5. What five words would you use to describe your political views?
I’m a social liberal democrat.

6. Which post have you most liked writing in the last year (and why)?
I enjoyed writing this, not because I was suspended from Twitter, because to be honest that was a nightmare, but thanks to the support shown by the online community, inside and outside the Liberal Democrats:
Andrew Reeves is still suspended on Twitter – but the support is awesome

7. Which post have you most liked reading in the last year (and why)?
I love reading Caron’s writing, because unlike my shoot from the hip and rant style, Caron is more methodical and this shows in her writing. In this post Caron highlights the hypocricy of the Labour party while still maintaining decorum – perfect:
Labour didn’t love NHS Direct

8. What’s your favourite YouTube clip?
I don’t particularly bother with YouTube, but this was my favourite ever:

9. Which bloggers, writers or thinkers inspire you?
Sara Bedford, Mark Pack and Caron Lindsay are the main three I read. I also read Paul Waugh and Olly Grender‘s pieces. Lynne Featherstone continues to inspire me, now a minister, a little more than before. Jeff Breslin (SNP Tactical Voting as was) is one of my favourite non-Lib Dem writers.

10. Give us a surprising fact about yourself:
I was a DJ in a gay pub (Admiral Duncan) and club (L’amour then Club 69) in Nottingham before leaving my home town in 1987/8.

You can see all our posts featuring Liberal Democrat bloggers here.

Ken Clarke is pushing on with implementing the Bribery Act – despite claims from Labour earlier in the year that the government could be about to delay implementing the Act indefinitely.

A Whitehall IT chief has admitted that, “Labour ministers ordered expensive computer projects because they wanted their policies to “sound sexy”.” It certainly helped explain Labour’s sudden conversion to having an e-enabled general election (plans since dropped). This was an announcement suddenly rolled out by Robin Cook despite completely cutting across the electronic counting and voting pilots the government was funding at the time and despite the lack of evidence from those trials that an e-election would be cost-effective or produce higher turnout.

And finally, news from Scotland – a last minute error with the paperwork meant that the nomination for one of the Liberal Democrat Scottish Parliament constituency candidates did not go through.

In the midst of all that I personally find unpalatable about the Coalition this is one area where I have just a modicum of hope. With Ken Clarke at the helm and Tom McNally at his side I believe we have a real opportunity to influence future youth justice policy for the good. One of the highlights of my week is representing the Federal Policy Committee (FPC) on the Home Affairs, Justice and Equalities Parliamentary Committee – I always leave being reminded just why I am a Liberal Democrat and feeling incredibly proud that we have so many parliamentarians who are such advocates for sensible, liberal, evidence based justice policy.

Passing our motion on Saturday will give us a strong platform from which to ensure all future Coalition justice policy reflects much more closely our approach.  And I assure you I will do my utmost to ensure that happens!

One of the key aspects of this vision is preventing and tackling offending by young people. In England and Wales the number of children aged 10 to 17 grew rapidly during the course of the 1990s and into the second term of the Labour government in office.

Thankfully in more recent years there has been a decrease in the number of children in custody, but there is still much work to be done. It is worrying that around £300 million of the Youth Justice Board’s budget, just shy of two thirds of the total budget, was spent on the secure estate. The use of custodial remand is currently too high and we are keen to see this addressed. Spending on youth remand could be better used to develop local solutions which would be more cost effective in the long term, and allow young people to be diverted away from a potentially unnecessary period in custody.

The Government is committed to maintaining a dedicated focus on the needs of children and young people in the youth justice system. The current youth justice system is based on local Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) who deliver youth justice on the ground by bringing together the local authority, police, probation and health to tackle youth offending. YOTs play a key role and we intend to bolster them. It makes sense to put our trust in professionals who are working with young people on the ground, so we will be enhancing the frontline services delivered to young people by YOTs.

We will deliver more effective community punishments to deal with anti-social behaviour and the failure to follow earlier community orders. We will build on the work that is already being done to divert young people from the courts and short sentences, because we know short sentences are not always effective. Informal interventions could be much more effective in making young people face up to the consequences of their actions and prevent further reoffending.

More needs to be done to encourage the kind of integrated and cross-agency working needed to tackle offending at a local level. We want to incentivise local partners to collaborate and align their priorities – for example through the community budgets for families with multiple problems that were announced as part of the spending review.

The main challenge before us is not just to stop those already in the criminal justice system from re-offending, but to try to stop young people from ending up in contact with the youth justice system. I am confident that the more community-based approach to youth justice that we’re working to achieve in the MoJ will help to achieve this.

When it comes to getting public support in return for making a positive impact on the coalition government, there are two requirements for the party. It has to have achievements that people know are down to the Liberal Democrats and also to have achievements which add up to more than a scattering of interesting details. Unless there is a clear thread running through them, the details will get lost in the non-political noise that takes up most people’s attention most of the time.

The party has been moving away from the initial approach of loving everything the government does in public, with more of the disagreements showing in public. Unintentionally, Ken Clarke is turning into a key ally on this with his sensible liberal approach to justice policy regularly putting into the public domain how it is Ken Clarke and the Liberal Democrats versus the bulk of the Conservative Party on many issues. Without the Lib Dems, policy in this area would look very different.

Displaying such disagreements without wrecking the necessary relations for a function coalition will be a major challenge in 2011. So too will be ensuring that the many individual good pieces of news add up to an overall story. As I wrote over the summer being good ministers is not enough:

It’s reassuring to hear at first hand that Liberal Democrat ministers outside of Cabinet are managing to plough a Liberal Democrat furrow in their own areas rather than simply being junior implementers of a Conservative Cabinet member’s policy.

Reassuringly too for those of us who have seen local councillors disappear into the bureaucracy and do a hard-working diligent job but forget what it is that makes them Liberal Democrat rather than just an apolitical competent administrator, there looks to be some consistent liberal themes across the decisions being made. In particular, issues about empowering individuals and decentralising power come up time and again.

The trickier question, however, is whether a collection of liberal victories scattered through government will add up to a convincing overall picture for the public of what Liberal Democrats have achieved in government. The danger is that, rather like a good speech writer, the party may end up making many significant changes to government, improving what is being done, but whose good work is not noticed by the public as it is behind the scenes.

Two ways the party can meet this challenge is by better internal communications and using members and supporters as a campaigning resource. Half the Liberal Democrat ministers, for example, have both not sent any emails out to party members generally on what they’ve been doing since May nor placed a guest post online on a Lib Dem blog. [CORRECTION: the half figure includes Whips along with departmental ministers and Whips are generally more restricted in what they talk about in public.]

It is possible to be a really good communicator with party members and use neither of those routes – but in reality those who are not using either of those routes are also not communicating much through other means.

That said, the volume of internal communication has picked up and with Tim Farron taking up the post of Party President on 1st January further improvements are also likely. Tim being in post will give the party a high profile, media friendly figure who can argue the party’s case rather than the government’s case and – by not being a minister – will have more freedom to emphasise differences rather than similarities between the coalition partners.

As for using members and supporters as a campaigning resource, that is for tomorrow’s challenge…

UPDATE: In a new year editorial, the Observer made a similar point about good ministerial work not winning public plaudits: “[Lib Dem ministers] have put in surprisingly impressive performances. The dilemma is that much of this work is invisible to all but the most avid Whitehall watchers and this allows their Conservative cabinet ministers to take the credit.”

Yesterday’s Australian advert, It’s Time, looked as much like a music video as a political advert. Music too played a major role in one of the UK Labour Party’s 1997 general election broadcasts, and the most powerful of all the ones I’ve seen ‘live’ at the time of broadcast.

As in the Australian Labor Party’s case, Labour too had been out of power for a long time – 18 years this time – and also faced an incumbent government that many felt had passed its sell-by date. The genius of the Labour ’97 effort was to put together ingredients which usually featured in Conservative broadcasts – patriotic music, Union Jacks, Conservative ministers, celebrating Conservative members – and turn them into a devastating attack, raising fears of what another term of Conservative government might do.

As I noted in my previous blog post about this broadcast, watch out for the very different way in which Ken Clarke was viewed then compared with now:

(Also available on YouTube here.)

You can see all the posts in this series on our Political Ads page – and scroll to the bottom of that page for Luis Fishman’s classic. The stretch from 7 seconds in until 22 seconds in is fairly normal. But as for the rest…

This might be thought a given as Liberals are, from the point of view of the media, supposed to have a benign, Panglossian view of human nature which unkind souls might call unrealistic or wet.

Wrong on both counts!

I have long thought the only good moral reason for punishing someone is that they deserve it and that the state is entitled to give offenders the punishment they deserve. That means many minor offenders could not grumble if they found themselves banged up in gaol. That makes me a supporter of what has been dubbed the retribution theory of punishment.

However every state, every school, every parent – every potential punisher, in other words, – has to decide how much due punishment to dole out. They do that in the light of other wider objectives.

Foremost amongst those is the need to keep crime down, to deter offenders. Here the evidence is unequivocal. Short sentences are not only costly but singularly ineffective in preventing re-offending compared with some of the alternative means of punishment.

This is what research by the National Audit Office shows, what the Public Accounts Committee and its right wing chairman, Edward Leigh recently concluded and what every Home Secretary since Winston Churchill has known.

Ken Clarke ought to be supported not because of any Liberal leanings but because he has the courage to act on the evidence and, at 70, to worry more about what might be the real results of policy than
headlines.

There will be a need to keep short sentences for unrepentant recidivists and a need to assess how a lesser incarceration rate impacts on potential criminals, to ensure the efficacy of community punishments but there can be no case for avoiding evidence led policy. Oh that others would follow suit!

To act on prejudice alone would be criminal.

If you give up what you most care about you start dying. It doesn’t matter what age.

Debate within the coalition on the key issues is a positive thing, insists Williams:

What we have to do is get as much as one possibly can of what Lib Dems believe into the coalition programme. It’s no good simply saying our role is to say no to everything.

Williams admits her surprise that the Liberal Democrats, of whom she was a founder, formed a coalition with the Conservative Party. Indeed, she had warned against such a deal, in the days following the General Election.

It’s a scenario she had simply never considered. “I’m making no bones about this, almost to the very end I argued for there to be a Labour-Lib Dem coalition. But Labour had already turned their mind to how they were going to rebuild – they weren’t interested in a coalition and treated us with considerable contempt.”

Having said this, she accepts that outcome would have made for a government so compromised as to be unworkable, just like the one she served in as a minister in the late 1970s. “And when I realised it wouldn’t work because there wasn’t the majority, my preferred choice – which may have been very irresponsible of me – was for a minority Conservative government.” Why? “It was a slightly selfish position. We wouldn’t have been forced to support things we didn’t agree with. It was about protecting the legacy of the Lib Dems. I didn’t want to see the Lib Dems, who I’ve always regarded as a left-of-centre party, suddenly becoming a right-of-centre party.”

So what is it like to end up in bed with the Tories? “Not one bed,” Williams says sharply. “Two beds.” She pauses. Actually, it’s not always two beds. “I find myself in bed with Ken Clarke on an awful lot of things the public would describe as liberal, and I’m perfectly happy there.” Williams has a way with unintended double entendres.

On keeping in touch with Lib Dem grassroots opinion, her advice to Nick Clegg is to “Listen very closely to what the party tells you and see how far you can go to meet it,” saying that Nick, in fairness, does this a lot. In any case, Williams predicts a lively party conference next month.

You can read the full interview, (including Shirley Williams’ views on academies, health, Trident and civil liberties) in the Guardian.

The three main parties were represented. I can’t recall who the other two people were, but the stand-out performance was from Simon Hughes.  Everything he said just made sense and for the life of me I couldn’t understand why the Liberal Democrats were not in Government.  This was the point at which I became politically aware.

I can’t say that I ran out and joined the party there and then, but I have voted Liberal Democrat since and never regretted it or thought of it as a wasted vote.

There has been talk of how Liberal Democrats can influence the Conservatives, providing a counter-balance to Conservative instincts, and to some extent, this may be true. The budget is one area where this can be seen to be evident, and recently, Kenneth Clarke appeared to be following the pre-election line of the Liberal Democrats when he talked about a “Victorian bang ‘em up” attitude to prisons.  Nationally, Liberal Democrat policies are beginning to filter through Government. But do we have any influence at all on foreign policy?

Last year, Simon Hughes wowed me all over again when he said that he had joined the Liberal Democrats because he thought that “Liberalism was the best way of dealing with unfairness in the world that at that time was most obvious in South Africa with apartheid and Palestine, sadly still the case today”.

Operation Cast lead, conducted by Israel against Gaza in 2008/2009, brought into focus for me the injustice heaped upon the Palestinians by the State of Israel and since then the cause of Palestine has been close to my heart, and it is an issue which the Liberal Democrat leadership – alone amongst the main political parties – has been consistently outspoken and honest about. Nick Clegg himself wrote: “The legacy of Operation Cast Lead is a living nightmare for one and a half million Palestinians squeezed into one of the most overcrowded and wretched stretches of land on the planet … And what has the British government and the international community done to lift the blockade? Next to nothing. Tough-sounding declarations are issued at regular intervals but little real pressure is applied. It is a scandal that the international community has sat on its hands in the face of this unfolding crisis.”

So, both the current Leader and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats are as one mind on this issue, and one of them is the current Deputy Prime Minister. So what are they going to do about it now?  Well, so far, and all too damningly, next to nothing.

The bad news is that William Hague, the current Foreign Secretary, has been a member of the Conservative Friends of Israel since he was 15. What is also worrying is that there is no Conservative counterpart to the Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine.  Are there really no voices to speak up for Palestine within the Conservative party?  How do we realistically influence a Foreign Secretary who explicitly threw his lot in with Israel decades ago? And how do we influence the wider Conservative party when they apparently lack an internal diversity of opinion on the issue of Israeli occupation of Palestine?

In hard economic times such as these, it is only natural that the Coalition Government faces inwards towards the UK and focuses upon navigating out of the recession, this is what the country demands. But this should not mean that we, as Liberal Democrats, should lose sight of the ideals of Liberal Democracy and how these should be applied universally and not just in our own nation. The last Palestinian legislative elections held in 2006 were described as “extremely professional, in line with international standards, free, transparent and without violence” by Edward McMillan-Scott, who headed the 30-strong team of MEPs that observed the Palestinian election, perhaps not surprisingly, he is a Liberal Democrat MEP.

The Palestine/Israel conflict was never an issue that I thought the Conservatives would influence Liberal Democrats over, but it appears, sadly, that this is exactly the case. And this troubles me.

The Liberal Democrats should use their influence and show international leadership by supporting Palestinian Civil Society and using Government channels to – as Nick Clegg called for – apply “real pressure” upon Israel to heed the myriad of UN resolutions asking it to end its occupation of Gaza, West Bank, and Golan Heights.