Tag Archives: new statesman

LibLink: In defence of the Lib Dems

By Prateek Buch | Published 16th December 2011 - 3:00 pm

Yours truly has a post on the New Statesman rolling blog The Staggers, responding to Mehdi Hasan’s rather provocative question, “What’s the point of the Liberal Democrats?”

Hasan pointed out five areas in which the Lib Dems had (in his view) “sacrificed their distinctive beliefs and principles and received little in return.”

I responded with my own 5 points, including:

1) Ask the nearly 1 million low-paid workers who have been lifted out of paying income tax altogether thanks to a Lib Dem manifesto commitment delivered in government. With the prospect of further significant reforms to come to make

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged Lib Dems, mehdi hasan, prateek buch, pupil premium, tax cuts (Lib Dem) | 4 Comments

Danny Alexander suggests £12,500 income tax threshold

By NewsHound | Published 8th September 2011 - 12:13 pm

Danny Alexander MP has argued in an interview in this week’s New Statesman magazine that he would like to “push further” eventually on raising the income tax threshold higher than the planned £10,000.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview, published in the Staggers:

From the Treasury perspective, the main Lib Dem contribution to government has been the plan to raise the income-tax threshold to £10,000 by the end of the parliament. Alexander is very attached to this policy as a way of compensating people on low incomes for the cuts. “I think it’s a direction that we will want to

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Posted in News | Also tagged danny alexander, income tax | 26 Comments

Opinion: Whisper it, but the press are starting to get it

By James Percival | Published 2nd September 2011 - 8:53 am

Whisper it, but it seems they might be starting to get it. It’s only taken them a year and a half.

‘They’ of course are the assorted numpties of the British press and ‘it’ is how coalition government works and just how important and influential Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats are within it.

For most of the time since May 2010 a crude and simplistic caricature of our government and the Lib Dems’ role in it has taken hold – that this is really a Tory government and the Lib Dems are either naive puppets being taken for a ride by …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged daily express, daily telegraph, nick clegg, the guardian | 24 Comments

Let Clegg be Clegg (just not toooo much)

By Stephen Tall | Published 10th April 2011 - 9:27 am

If, like me, you’re an admirer of Nick Clegg — his grit, honesty and openness — there will have been plenty to admire this week. If, like me, you occasionally despair of Nick Clegg — the frankness can turn into a gaffe — there will have been plenty to make you despair this week.

First of all, the Best of Clegg…

As Nicholas Watt notes in the Guardian, Nick has been ‘finding his feet’, and ‘starting to show in public what he has always claimed in private – that he stands up to Cameron’. This has been clear from the …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged jemima khan, nick clegg, olly grender | 13 Comments

LibLink: Nick Clegg, the New Statesman interview and crying

By Mark Pack | Published 9th April 2011 - 12:26 pm

The latest edition of the New Statesman has an interview with Nick Clegg, which has mostly garnered attention for the shock news that Nick Clegg is a human being and has been known to cry to music:

He is besotted by his “three lovely boys” and is most proud “by a long shot” of the family life he has created with Miriam. They manage to lead a relatively normal life, “not in a bunker in Westminster”, and he tries to pick his children up from school and put them to bed at night at least two or three times a week.

He

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged afghanistan, hamid karzi, miriam gonzalez durantez, nick clegg, paddy ashdown | 8 Comments

Meet the Lib Dem bloggers: Olly Grender

By Mark Pack | Published 14th February 2011 - 10:25 am

Welcome to the latest in our series giving the human face behind some of the blogs you can find on the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator.

Today it is Olly Grender, who blogs at http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/olly-grender.

1. What’s your formative political memory?
A toss up between my Mum voting in favour of joining Europe in the referendum and my Dad feeling agitated about and improving workers rights in industry.

2. When did you start blogging?
In January, so please be gentle with me! (though all constructive feedback from fellow LibDems welcome).

3. Why did you start blogging?
Have been thinking of doing it for some time, …

Posted in Online politics | Also tagged blogging, daily telegraph, lib dem bloggers, nick clegg, olly grender, peter watt | Leave a comment

New Statesman’s advice to Lib Dem-baiters: “Don’t count those pesky Lib Dems out just yet”

By Stephen Tall | Published 23rd October 2010 - 12:57 pm

The latest YouGov poll showing the Lib Dems at 10%, one of the party’s worst ratings in years, has excited comment, especially and not surprisingly among those who are pleased to see the Lib Dems struggling. Less surprisingly still, YouGov’s fndings attract more publicity among our critics than ICM’s polls, which show the party consistently at or around the 18% mark.

Credit, therefore, to the New Statesman’s Sholto Byrnes for bringing a quality on scarce display in political commentary: a sense of perspective:

Ever since I entered journalism I have noticed how quick many, if not most, commentators and

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Posted in Polls | Also tagged sholto byrnes | 117 Comments

LibLink: Simon Hughes – The Lib Dems can keep the lights on

By NewsHound | Published 7th April 2010 - 8:35 pm

Over at the New Statesman, Simon Hughes, the Lib Dems’ shadow secretary of state for energy and climate change, mounts a passionate defence of the party’s call for an independent inquiry into nuclear power – a call which led pro-nuclear environmental campaigner Mark Lynas to far-fetchedly claim the lights could go out in the event of a hung parliament.

First, Simon points out the need for an independent inquiry into the “justification” for nuclear power:

“Justification” is the process of assessment of the health effects of nuclear power and is a legal requirement before any new nuclear plant can operate in

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged mark lynas, nuclear power, simon hughes | 2 Comments

That Staggers / Clegg interview in full

By Stephen Tall | Published 30th May 2009 - 3:30 pm

This week’s New Statesman has an in-depth interview with Nick Clegg by James Macintyre – courtesy the Staggers, there’s a full transcript below, in which the Lib Dem leader confesses/proclaims he’d like to be Prime Minister, relates how Michael Howard and the Tories “kicked [the Ghurkas] in the face”, and admits that his GQ interview with Piers Morgan was perhaps the lowest point of his “bumpy first year”.

Posted in News | Also tagged nick clegg | 3 Comments

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