Author Archives: Andrew Tennant

Andrew Tennant

Opinion: We feel the handbrake of history on our Liberal reforming.

By Andrew Tennant | Sat 2nd February 2013 - 5:30 pm

I doubt it’s gone unnoticed, but there are rather a lot of Tories in parliament.

Some 306 Tory MPs were elected in May 2010 (47% of the total on 36.1% of the vote), compared to a meagre 57 Lib Dems (only 9%, despite the party actually getting 23.0% of the vote).

And so the Lib Dems in parliament have had quite a battle to achieve their successes so far in government.

First Past the Post is neither a fair, nor a kind system …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 45 Comments
Andrew Tennant

Opinion: Time to give voters the chance to register their abstention, or wish to abolish a post #WeDoRONRON

By Andrew Tennant | Sat 17th November 2012 - 4:55 pm

We’d all like to believe that the 80+% of voters who stayed at home for last week’s PCC elections would have voted for a Lib Dem candidate had one stood in their area. But the result can probably more accurately be seen as mass public apathy, or even hostility to the Police and Crime Commissioners policy.

A major problem with our electoral system, then, is that there is no effective way to capture and represent ‘none of the above’ or ‘no-one under any circumstances’ viewpoints that so many potentially hold.

As a democrat, I want to fix that. That’s why I hope …

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Posted in Op-eds | 18 Comments
Andrew Tennant

Opinion: Hard-headed realism should guide our dealings with the Conservatives

By Andrew Tennant | Thu 25th October 2012 - 5:03 pm

I’m an unreserved coalition enthusiast.

The coalition means Lib Dems in government; something which, in turn, means the implementation of many Lib Dem policies, the likes of which I have campaigned and voted for over the years, believing said policies to be long overdue and beneficial for the country.

But, despite what our critics say, that doesn’t make me a Tory; and I have very little interest in seeing the Conservatives have an easy ride, in helping them implement their policies, or in keeping their members happy.

The embrace them closely strategy of the first coalition year now looks naive, and most Lib …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 107 Comments
Andrew Tennant

Opinion: Lib Dems should support the NHS reforms to secure its long-term future

By Andrew Tennant | Thu 1st March 2012 - 11:58 am

Listen to the Labour spin, the media furore, or the special interests in the healthcare unions, and you’d think that the Health and Social Care Bill had been crafted by the evil Tories and naive Lib Dems to maliciously snatch all hope of critically needed health and hospital care from the poor and vulnerable, dooming great swathes of the population to lives of miserable illness and suffering, all to help the ‘rich and profiteering’ private healthcare companies milk every last penny and drop of human decency out of society.

Left leaning voters are angry – indeed opinion polls show that a

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 126 Comments
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  • nigel hunter
    cHLOE, bLAIR CONTINUED tHATCHERISM. Our industries were 'transferred to China etc, cos they made them cheaper. Result, all the UK has are warehouses to store ...
  • Hywel
    "the cost of a first-class letter has risen by more than 100% in the last five years" Outside of sending leaflets at election time when was the last time peo...
  • Chloe
    Nigel; Every single factory my parents and their families worked in - in my home town has gone . Only to be replaced by low pay , low skill warehouse work on th...
  • Judy Abel
    And yes Brexit took the breaks off the worst excesses of neoliberalism with weaker consumer regulation and less scrutiny of public procurement for example....
  • Judy Abel
    @NigelHunter I agree with every word. Money is leaking out of the economy to narrow private business interests like water through a collander....