Author Archives: Iain Roberts

Iain Roberts

Would the coalition dare to cut welfare back to Labour levels?

By Iain Roberts | Sun 4th July 2010 - 5:20 pm

After adjusting for inflation, welfare spending today is an astonishing ten times higher than in 1948, according to figures published in yesterday’s Guardian.

The graph shows that the sharpest rises in welfare spending were both under Conservative administrations (presumably not unconnected with the recessions at those times – 1981-84 and 1991-94 – though the bill rose in all but three of the 18 years of Conservative government).

Only under Churchill and Eden in the 1950s did the welfare bill fall slightly.  Under Macmillan it rose about 50%, and the welfare bill Labour inherited in 1997 was almost double that they’d handed …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , , , and | 19 Comments
Iain Roberts

How many votes should earn a party power?

By Iain Roberts | Sun 4th July 2010 - 4:20 pm

“It’s outrageous that the Lib Dems wield any power and influence having secured just 23% of the popular vote”, goes the argument  – mostly heard from Labour activists at the moment.

I don’t recall them arguing that Labour shouldn’t have had power after 2005, when the party won 35% of the vote, so I wonder at what point a party switches from no power to total power?  Which vote swings it?  Perhaps we could identify the actual voter and let them know?

Hello Mrs Abercromby – we just wanted you to know that your vote will take your party over 33.84% which …

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Posted in Op-eds | 22 Comments
Iain Roberts

Thanks Jack: Tory right finds a friend in Labour

By Iain Roberts | Wed 30th June 2010 - 8:20 am

Justice Secretary Ken Clarke is calling for cuts in Britain’s prison population, following the agenda set by the Lib Dems and previously opposed by both the Conservatives and Labour.

Those Labour activists still clinging desperately onto the idea that the Lib Dems are mere cheerleaders in the coalition are going to have to twist themselves into yet more contortions – or simply  ignore the facts – as they continue to push their line.

As Jack Straw writes in The Mail:

has allowed his government’s penal policy to be dictated not by his own common sense but by Justice Secretary Kenneth

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 18 Comments
Iain Roberts

People in broad church parties should think twice before attacking coalitions

By Iain Roberts | Tue 29th June 2010 - 4:20 pm

There are plenty of political parties hanging on to their ideological purity, where all the members pretty much agree on all the key issues. They’re easy to spot: they’re the ones that always lose.

The big parties are compromises – broad churches – people who work together because they agree a bit more with each other than with the rest, or simply because it’s the tribe they’re in.

Broad church parties are necessary in our electoral system. Under First Past the Post, you need to get to a certain size to have any real chance of success, and there simply …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 20 Comments
Iain Roberts

A personal message from your Liberal candidate

By Iain Roberts | Sun 27th June 2010 - 6:20 pm

This is a time when we should all be pulling together, yet here we are, in the middle of a general election which could leave the country desperately divided.

The election itself will not solve any of our problems.  Our present troubles will still be with us long after the result has been announced.  Our need then will not be for confrontation but for partnership, and your  vote could help to bring about that spirit of unity which our country so badly needs.

…

Even forty or fifty Liberal Members in the next parliament would be enough to change the face of Britain. 

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 21 Comments
Iain Roberts

No return to two-party politics, but we need to trumpet our successes

By Iain Roberts | Sun 27th June 2010 - 1:20 pm

A couple of post-budget polls show post-budget combined support for the coalition parties remarkably steady – one at 59% and the other 56%, but with a move from the Lib Dems to the Tories, with Labour also picking up a bit of support  and “others” squeezed down.

Unsurprisingly, the budget is less popular with Lib Dem voters than Tory voters.  It’s less popular with our activists too.  Most Lib Dems recognise the need for tough action to sort out the mess the nation’s finances are in, and Nick and Vince have been talking about it for long enough.

But the measures in …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 29 Comments
Iain Roberts

Everyone should watch BBC Parliament once

By Iain Roberts | Fri 25th June 2010 - 11:20 am

Most people – the normal folks who aren’t political junkies – probably don’t spend their time watching BBC Parliament. But perhaps they should – just once or twice.

Why? The view most of us get from Parliament are the set pieces like PMQs. Benches packed with braying members and the aim to get one over on the other side, to give your team something to cheer about. The Punch and Judy politics every new leader of every political party has to ritually reject for at least a few hours before falling back into line.

But most of …

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Posted in Parliament | 11 Comments
Iain Roberts

Lines of attack against the Lib Dems becoming clearer

By Iain Roberts | Thu 24th June 2010 - 4:20 pm

The Labour Party and the media in general are still figuring our how best to attack the Lib Dems – a party which, they all believed not so long ago, could be ignored, safe in the knowledge that it would never get near power.

Back then the strategy was simple: ignore when possible and insult when not. Rarely would you hear a mention of the Lib Dems in the press. As far as the tabloids were concerned, the party hardly existed except when some scandal erupted. Labour and the Conservatives rarely felt the urge to address …

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Posted in Op-eds | 146 Comments
Iain Roberts

At last…a Welsh Prime Minister

By Iain Roberts | Thu 24th June 2010 - 8:20 am

Congratulations to Julia Gillard, new leader of the Australian Labor Party and Australia’s first woman Prime Minister.

Welsh pride can also take a boost as Gillard was born in Barry Island, near Cardiff, where she lived until moving to Australia the ripe old age of four.

When it comes to furnishing the world with Prime Ministers, Wales has yet to fulfil its potential. In the UK we had David Lloyd-George (born in central Manchester but undoubtably Welsh) and so nearly had Neil Kinnock. We’ve had a Canadian born PM (Bonar Law) more recently than a Welshman.

Could this be a turning …

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Posted in Europe / International | Tagged , , and | 13 Comments
Iain Roberts

Home Access scheme may do more harm than good

By Iain Roberts | Mon 21st June 2010 - 6:05 pm

The Home Access scheme is a well meaning Government-funded project to give computers to children from poorer families and so bridge the “digital divide”.

But, as The Register is reporting, new research from the US suggests such schemes may do more harm than good.

People often worry that such gaps will be enhanced as richer families acquire computers and internet connections and poorer households don’t, which has led to many initiatives by governments, charities etc designed to get digital technologies into the hands of even the poorest.

…a kid in a disadvantaged home given a computer and internet access will tend to

…

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Posted in News | Tagged | 14 Comments
Iain Roberts

Councils and communities must rise to the Coalition challenge

By Iain Roberts | Sun 20th June 2010 - 4:24 pm

People rather like to be able to blame someone else for the hard choices.  Speaking to that angry customer at work, isn’t it so much easier to blame management or “the rules” for not giving her a refund.  Isn’t it so much harder – and less pleasant – to explain to her that you’ve made the decision to deny her request and you could have decided otherwise, even though you’d rather like having that power.

Politicians are no different.  We want to have the power, but it doesn’t hurt if someone else can take the blame for those unpopular choices.

Labour are …

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Posted in Local government and Op-eds | 14 Comments
Iain Roberts

Daily Mail descends into fantasy over Huhne

By Iain Roberts | Sun 20th June 2010 - 2:20 pm

The right wing press has, once again, shown itself to be brazen in their vindictive hounding of Lib Dem MPs over their private lives, the latest victim being Chris Huhne who’s split from his wife of 26 years after a year-long affair with another woman.

The correct response is, of course, to ignore it – politics, like journalism, is a high pressure business and – regretably – politicians are no more immune to these things than the rest of us.  If we were to demand everyone who ever had an affair stood down from their job, the queues to sign on …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 46 Comments
Iain Roberts

Daily Express readers’ comments, a century ago

By Iain Roberts | Sun 20th June 2010 - 12:20 pm

Ever spent time looking at the online comments to a Daily Express or Daily Mail story?  Really, life’s too short.

But is this a new phenomenon?  The sheer volume of lunacy allowed by the Internet is a change, but beyond that it seems little has altered in the last century.

Here are some readers’ comments about suffragettes, from the Daily Express in 1913.

“These neurotic women clamour for the vote.  What they need is a fire hose.”

“Hard labour and salts and senna would soon quench the ardour of these notoriety-beating females.”

“The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, but women who smash

…

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Iain Roberts

How come the evidence always supports your views

By Iain Roberts | Mon 14th June 2010 - 11:23 am

We political activists all have our creeds – the various strands of liberal, conservative, labour and other political thinking that our opinions stem from.

And most of us, whatever our politics, believe that the evidence also backs us up.  Remarkably, my views on policy both stem from my political philisophy and are supported by the available evidence.

Even more amazingly, my political opponents believe the same is true for them.  What are the odds?

Needless to say, this is absolutely not confirmation bias – no way!  That’s the psychological failing we pretty much all fall prey to at least some of the time …

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Posted in News | 17 Comments
Iain Roberts

Now they’re down, now they’re up, now they’re…

By Iain Roberts | Mon 14th June 2010 - 7:23 am

Following the YouGov/Sunday Times poll that had the Lib Dems falling to 18% yesterday, a Harris/Metro poll today has the Lib Dems up at 25%.

As Mike Smithson reports over on Political Betting, the fieldwork for the Harris poll is actually slightly older, (1st-9th June as opposed to YouGov 10th-11th June).

Rather than telling us anything particularly useful – certainly in terms of the outcome of any future elections – these last two are notable more for the pollsters finally leaving behind a run of six post-election polls all of which had the Lib Dems firmly planted at 21%.

Since one …

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Posted in Polls | 2 Comments
Iain Roberts

Government websites to use Open Source “wherever possible”

By Iain Roberts | Fri 4th June 2010 - 11:52 am

In response to a question from Tom Watson, Government minister Francis Maude asserted that Government departmental websites should “wherever possible” use Open Source Software.  This is very significant change in emphasis from the previous government, which merely said that open source and proprietary solutions should both be considered on an equal footing.

The implication, if this policy is implemented, will be departments having to justify not using open source for their websites should they choose to go down the proprietary route.  We await seeing how this turns out in practice, since warm words from the cabinet office don’t necessarily translate …

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Iain Roberts

Maybe Labour was right about Gene Hunt after all

By Iain Roberts | Wed 2nd June 2010 - 4:55 pm

Back near the beginning of the election campaign the parties had a bit of fun with a Gene Hunt election poster. Labour had Gene on his red Audi Quattro, warning us about a return to the ’80s. The Conservatives thought the reckless Hunt, who frequently bends and breaks the rules to get results and thumbs his nose at authority, was a rather positive model and put out their own version of the poster.

It seems Labour was nearer to the truth.

There are MPs – in all parties – who have exploited the expenses system to enrich themselves at the …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 25 Comments
Iain Roberts

Media attacks are in full flow – what do we do now?

By Iain Roberts | Mon 31st May 2010 - 4:20 pm

A couple of weeks ago I wrote that Lib Dems should get used to constant attacks and scrutiny. Everyone used to it now?

Enoch Powell may not have said a great deal I agree with, but he certainly had a point with his oft-repeated quote that:

For a politician to complain about the press is like a ship’s captain complaining about the sea

This is what the press do. We can point out the errors when they’re particularly egregious or complain to the rather-toothless PCC.

Parliament might even want to take one of its occasional looks at changing the law.  …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 41 Comments
Iain Roberts

Cameron freeing public sector data

By Iain Roberts | Mon 31st May 2010 - 11:28 am

David Cameron today announced plans few Lib Dems would disagree with: to free up a lot more public sector data.

As the Conservative Party website reports

Key proposals include:

  • Items of local government expenditure over £500
  • Details of all government contracts over £10,000
  • Items of central government expenditure over £25,000
  • Names and salaries of all civil servants earning more than £150,000 per year
  • Data covering the last three months on the number of cases of MRSA and C.Difficile infection in each hospital
  • Data on crime in each street

As anyone familiar with the …

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Posted in News | 5 Comments
Iain Roberts

Innocent or guilty, there is no case for Laws to resign

By Iain Roberts | Sat 29th May 2010 - 6:35 pm

I’ve read, and listened to, a great deal of comment about David Laws today. Rumours are currently circulating that Laws has resigned from the Government. If so, I think it’s a great shame, a great injustice and a great disservice that’s been done to the British people.

Let’s take the absolute worst case scenario: that Laws knowingly broke the rules, saw himself and James Lundie as partners, chose not to admit it and took the money.

If that were the case – and Laws says it isn’t – the public purse will have been no worse off as a result …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 68 Comments
Iain Roberts

The new Liberal Democrat peers

By Iain Roberts | Fri 28th May 2010 - 5:04 pm

According to the Number 10 website (and if they don’t know, who does), here are the new Liberal Democrat peers:

Working peers list

* Floella Benjamin OBE DL – actor, presenter and campaigner for children’s issues
* Mike German OBE AM – former Deputy First Minister (Wales)
* Meral Hussein Ece OBE – Local Government Councillor in Islington, advocate of equality issues
* Sir Kenneth (Ken) Macdonald QC – former Director of Public Prosecutions
* Kathryn (Kate) Jane Parminter – former Chief Executive of Campaign …

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Posted in News | 10 Comments
Iain Roberts

As you were…three new unitaries cancelled

By Iain Roberts | Wed 26th May 2010 - 10:15 pm

Labour’s plan to replace the existing councils in Exeter, Norwich and Suffolk with new unitary authorities has been cancelled by the coalition government.

Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles today announced that the existing local government structures would remain.

The argument for the decision seems to be that the move to unitaries didn’t have the support of the local populations, two didn’t have the support of the independent boundaries commission and they were going to cause a lot of hassle for very little savings.

The real meat on this story looks to be down in note 4 to …

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Posted in Local government | Tagged , , and | 10 Comments
Iain Roberts

All our parties have more in common than we’d like to admit

By Iain Roberts | Tue 25th May 2010 - 11:19 am

Our politics emphasises the differences between parties.

Much as voters say they want parties to work together, to agree more, to be more constructive, those that do it are often punished in the polls and at the ballot box. If you want someone to vote for you and not the other guy, it’s more effective to say how you differ than how you’re alike.

“I agree with Nick” didn’t turn out to be the winning strategy for Gordon Brown – Labour did better when they were shouting about where they disagreed with Nick – and with Dave.

The result is …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 7 Comments
Iain Roberts

Frugal times ahead for local authorities

By Iain Roberts | Mon 24th May 2010 - 5:53 pm

It hasn’t come as a surprise: local authorities up and down the land have been preparing for budget cuts for some time.  Worst case scenarios have been considered, proposals for cuts drawn up and heads scratched over how the numbers can all be made to add up.

We already knew that council tax would be frozen next year.  We now know that the money local authorities get from central government will fall too.

As the HM Treasury press release says

In addition, £1.165 bn of savings will be made in Local Government by reducing grants to Local Authorites to reflect their contribution to

…

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Posted in Local government | 10 Comments
Iain Roberts

Cuts: Labour need to decide why they oppose them

By Iain Roberts | Mon 24th May 2010 - 4:50 pm

During the election campaign, all three parties were united in their agreement that big public sector cuts were needed to tackling our record deficit.  Figures of around £70 billion were spoken of, and commentators criticised the parties for only identfying a fraction of those.

There was one area of disagreement.  The Conservatives wanted to make £6 billion of cuts immediately, whilst the Lib Dems and Labour argued that would risk pushing the country back into a double-dip recession.

I’ll be honest – I’ve not got the faintest idea who’s right on that one.  I genuinely don’t have a clue whether a 1% …

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Posted in Op-eds | 38 Comments
Iain Roberts

So you’re a Lib Dem and you want to change the law

By Iain Roberts | Sun 23rd May 2010 - 4:20 pm

The Lib Dems, along with their predecessor parties, have had years of being very democratic: elected reps passing policy at conference, most of which has then sat buried in a dusty policy document in a filing cabinet somewhere in the bowels of Cowley Street.

Occasionally some policy or other gets plucked from obscurity to feature in an election manifesto or – the highest accolade – to be pinched by Labour or the Conservatives, rebranded as their own and even turned into law.

Now the Lib Dems are partners in the coalition government, we’re getting used to seeing big chunks of Lib Dem …

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Posted in Conference and News | Leave a comment
Iain Roberts

Now would be a really good time for the Lib Dems to get some decent IT policy

By Iain Roberts | Sat 22nd May 2010 - 11:35 am

Under Major, Blair and Brown, the UK Government has followed a deliberate policy of running down its internal IT expertise and relying on external providers – mostly big companies like Capita and EDS – to provide IT expertise, systems and services.

The result, many argue, has been expensive IT that’s been very successful in maximising the profits of the consultants but rather less good at meeting the needs of the public sector or, for that matter, the public.  Project after project has run massively over budget and time, with the companies responsible often seeming to be rewarded for their shortcomings.

So what’s …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 3 Comments
Iain Roberts

The elections and referendums for the next five years

By Iain Roberts | Fri 21st May 2010 - 2:20 pm

One side effect of a coalition government full of reforming zeal is lots of opportunities for the good people of Britain to troop down to their local polling station and make the appropriate mark on a ballot paper.

Here are the elections and referendums that look to me to be coming our way in the next few years – I may have missed some.

  • local elections as now (unitary, met, county, district, town, parish)
  • European election in 2014
  • referendum on AV for Westminster elections
  • elections for an alternative to the Infrastructure Planning Commission?  Probably not, but the agreement says the new body will be “democratically

…

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Posted in News | 19 Comments
Iain Roberts

Repealing “daft” laws won’t be so easy

By Iain Roberts | Thu 20th May 2010 - 3:35 pm

Labour created thousands of new criminal offences in its time in office.  The new laws added to the statute books in each of the parliaments since 1997 dwarf anything from any previous parliament.

Did those laws transform our country into a utopian land?  No.  But it would be foolish to think that repealing some of that weight of law will be a simple task.

We might disagree with many of the laws.  We might think they do more harm than good, or that they’re ineffective, or address a problem that doesn’t really exist, or are being applied in a way never envisaged.  …

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Posted in Op-eds | 23 Comments
Iain Roberts

Clegg’s big shake-up gets the media excited

By Iain Roberts | Wed 19th May 2010 - 8:28 am

The media is getting excited about the coalition government’s plans to reform our politics and laws, and  they’re mostly seeing it as Nick Clegg’s plan. Nick’s making a speech on the subject later today – here’s how its being trailed.

BBC

Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg will pledge the “biggest shake-up of our democracy” in 178 years later as he expands on plans for political reform.

The Independent headline is “Clegg makes his bid for a place in history” and say that Nick will go for a big bang, rather than a piecemeal approach:

* scrapping the identity card scheme and

…

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Posted in News | 38 Comments
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