Author Archives: Glyn Ley

Lib Dem Nevis – sponsored Ben Nevis climb to fund an HQ internship

Last week, our party President Tim Farron wrote on Lib Dem Voice about the party’s intentions to fundraise and pay all interns who work at Lib Dem HQ. I think this is fantastic news and something I support. He did however raise the issue that implementing this policy – so that everyone is able to take up an internship regardless of their financial circumstances – could mean fewer internships are available for people to take up. About 18 months ago I wrote an article on here where

Posted in News | Tagged and | 1 Comment

Devon and Cornwall select Brian Blake for Police and Crime Commissioner election

Devon & Cornwall Lib Dems have selected Brian Blake as their candidate for the Police and Crime Commissioner elections on November 15th. Brian is an excellent candidate, having served for 31 years in the Police Service across the region in both counties, finishing his career as a Detective Chief Inspector.

After retiring from the Police, Brian worked for 13 years for the Ministry of Defence, involving personnel vetting of military, NATO and UK Government employees working abroad.

He is the only person to have announced their candidacy to have experience of …

Posted in News | Tagged , and | 12 Comments

Opinion: Forcing payment for internships could actually reduce opportunities

There has been plenty of talk recently about the unfairness of Westminster internships and calls for all internships in Parliament and in political parties to be paid. I understand the good intentions behind this argument but am concerned about the effects this could actually have on opportunities.

There are two issues being discussed around internships and it’s important not to get them confused. The first is the issue of informal internships – Daddy getting you an exclusive internship because he plays golf with somebody influential.

This is what Nick Clegg is talking about when he says that “it should be what …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 13 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • David Sparrow
    Interesting and thoughtful article in the Guardian online, I agree now is not the time the only beneficiaries will be the Tories and Labour but Ed does need to ...
  • Peter Davies
    The Labour Party has been remarkably unsuccessful at excluding the middle class. They have the second most middle class membership of any major party (The Green...
  • Tristan Ward
    @ Jason Conner "But there are some very wealthy upper middle class people on this site by the looks of things and I am not one of them. " Are you suggesti...
  • Tristan Ward
    @ David Raw Historically, Tristan, when the party moved to the right (2010-15) the consequence was that the number of Lib Dem M.P.’s dropped from 57 in 201...
  • Jason Connor
    But who would you replace Ed Davey with? The most obvious candidate, Christine Jardine, is stepping down at the next GE. I don't think there's been hardly any s...