Author Archives: Iain Roberts

Where’s a cat when you need one?

By Iain Roberts | Sun 14th March 2010 - 5:08 pm

In November 1912, the use of flogging with the cat was extended to those procuring prostitutes and for crimes against women and children. An anti-flogging amendment was rejected by 297 votes to 44.

Some were opposed. George Greenwood (Liberal, Peterborough) called flogging “the methods of barbarism”.

Arthur Lynch (Nationalist, West Clare – this was before Irish independence), described the horrors of a flogging he had witnessed.

” was an artist in it. He laid on the lash with such vigour that at every stroke the victim’s whole frame quivered, his eyes rolled in, his muscles stood out as though they

…

Posted in News | Tagged corporal punishment, flogging, history and The way we were | 4 Comments

+++ BREAKING: Freedom, Creativity & the Internet motion passed overwhelmingly

By Iain Roberts | Sun 14th March 2010 - 10:01 am

The last morning of conference has a traditional feel to it. Sore-headed delegates drag themselves wearily out of bed, stagger to the nearest coffee emporium, point themselves in the general direction of the conference venue and start walking, hopeful that some residual memory of that first, non-hungover, visit will get them there.

The venue opened at 8.30am and by 9 o’clock the small trickle of Lib Dem activists has turned into a slightly larger trickle.

Whether through abstinence and early night or impressive force of will, some travellers seem a little less weary.

Julian Huppert, one of …

Posted in Conference | Tagged digital economy bill | 6 Comments

Can conference exhibitors find a little sparkle?

By Iain Roberts | Sat 13th March 2010 - 8:10 pm

The exhibition hall is an important part of conference, along with the debates in the main hall, fringe events, training and, of course, the conference bar.

So why are so many of the stands so dull?

(not necessarily these ones, I hasten to add).

I know it’s not easy to come up with a novel and interesting stand, especially on a limited budget, and I’ll certainly plead guilty to being as unimaginative as the next man (probably more). But conference after conference the stands look much …

Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Tagged #ldconf | 9 Comments

No ring-fencing for cuts as Vince feels the love

By Iain Roberts | Sat 13th March 2010 - 1:16 pm

When the main hall is packed at a Spring Conference, you can be sure it isn’t because everyone wants to debate the third clause of the Federal Conference Committee’s report, or even (as we heard this morning) discuss the rights and wrongs of holding a conference that clashes with Mothers’ Day.

No, it’s because St. Vince of Twickenham is taking to the stage. The halo may have slipped slightly on occasion, most notably the hastily-revised Mansion Tax proposals made at Bournemouth last September, but for the party faithful it’s still Vince who can heal the sick and, if weather conditions …

Posted in Conference | Tagged #ldconf and vince cable | 1 Comment

The Clegg coalition line emerges

By Iain Roberts | Sat 13th March 2010 - 11:52 am

Very sneakily, Clegg’s team have found a neat way to turn questions about hung parliaments into a positive message about Lib Dem policy. We saw it on the news today, and I’m sure we’ll see it wheeled out again – and again, and again, probably until journalists get bored of asking the question.

When asked what the Lib Dems would do in the event of a hung parliament, Nick’s strategy is to say what the Lib Dems would want to get from any sort of deal, which mysteriously matches closely with the four key themes. Nick says we would …

Posted in Conference and General Election | Tagged hung parliament and nick clegg | 4 Comments

+++ BREAKING: Lib Dems to debate Freedom, Creativity and the Internet tomorrow

By Iain Roberts | Sat 13th March 2010 - 11:17 am

In a close vote in the conference hall, Lib Dem conference delegates decided to debate “Freedom, Creativity and the Internet” as the single emergency motion to be considered tomorrow.

The alternative NHS motion was narrowly edged out.

Promoters of the Freedom, Creativity and the Internet motion hope that it will send a clear signal of the Lib Dems both understanding and supporting a liberal position on enforcement of copyright laws online.

Posted in Conference and News | Tagged digital economy bill | 4 Comments

Paddy Ashdown in existential shock at rally

By Iain Roberts | Sat 13th March 2010 - 10:47 am

A good conference rally is fun to attend and tricky to report on, simply because there should be nothing new. The audience ideally leaves reminded of the key messages and enthused to fight the good fight – there’s plenty of time for controversy over the rest of the weekend.

As in Bournemouth, the rally took on a glitzy feel: dry ice, bright lights, (relatively) slick presentation.

Lorely Burt opened procedings with a few jokes, and promise of holding her seat in Solihull, where the Lib Dems overturned a 9,400 Tory majority last time round.

Then a selection of …

Posted in Conference | Tagged #ldconf, nick clegg, paddy ashdown, rally and shirley williams | 11 Comments

Lib Dem Lords offer concessions on Digital Economy amendments

By Iain Roberts | Fri 12th March 2010 - 12:10 pm

Following a barage of criticism over amendments to the Digital Economy Bill, the backers of the amendment are to make concessions which, they hope, will answer many of the objections.

As the FT reports :

The Liberal Democrats will publish changes on Friday to their original amendment, of which the Conservatives said they were “broadly supportive”.

Under the new proposals, which will be put to the vote on Monday at the bill’s third reading in the Lords, a judge could order copyright owners to pay legal costs and other compensation for asking a service provider to block

…

Posted in News | Tagged digital economy bill and tim clement-jones | 15 Comments

Pornography and violence: what does the evidence show?

By Iain Roberts | Thu 11th March 2010 - 12:45 pm

Is there a link between the availability of pornography in a society and sex crimes like rape? And does watching more pornography lead men to see women as mere sex-objects?

It’s a debate that’s bounced back and forth for decades. Both sides have plausible explanations as to how their claims can be true.

Perhaps, after watching pornography, men are more likely to feel agressive and commit sex crimes. If the increased availability of pornography over the last thirty years has led to more rapes and sexual assaults, surely there’s a good case for our society being more censorious.

Or maybe …

Posted in News | Tagged hawaii and pornography | 4 Comments

Daily View 2×2: 10 March 2010

By Iain Roberts | Wed 10th March 2010 - 8:11 am

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

Tories in Devon and Cornwall set themselves a target of raising £13,000 in an Obama-style online donate-now campaign, perhaps in an attempt to wean themselves off the Ashcroft millions. How much did they raise?
Stephen Glenn picks up on the news that Lord Paul has said he will voluntarily end his non-dom status from April, whether required to or not, and asks what it means for the Tory “they do it too” defence.

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Big Stories

Short term prison sentences don’t work

Posted in Daily View | Tagged conservative party, daily mail, facebook, lord ashcroft and non-doms | Leave a comment

The smell of an early Victorian slum

By Iain Roberts | Sun 7th March 2010 - 12:33 pm

A bit for libetarians and for regulators – so take what you will. It was laws and regualations, not market forces, that ended this, though it seems we can never under-estimate the ability of a greedy State to make a bad situation worse.

This is an account from 1942 looking back to the condition of the poor a century earlier.

In the early years of the century the builder and landlord were unrestricted. The filthiest hovel or cellar could be let to as many people as would take it; no drainage or water had to be provided.

Ventilation the State heartily discouraged

…

Posted in News | Tagged history, slum, The way we were, ventilation, victorian and window tax | Leave a comment

Daily View 2×2: 3 March 2010

By Iain Roberts | Wed 3rd March 2010 - 3:53 pm

Better late than never, today’s Daily View finally arrives. The miners’ strike ended on this day in 1985, and Switzerland voted to join the United Nations in this day in 2002.

2 Big Stories

Life found on Mars

Posted in Daily View | Tagged ian paisley, mars and silverback gorilla | Leave a comment

Obama would have been blocked by Labour – what about the Lib Dems?

By Iain Roberts | Mon 1st March 2010 - 10:50 am

A former US grassroots campaigner, now working in Manchester, has claimed that Labour is an alienating force in our big cities and Obama would never have made it in the Labour Party.

Gregory Galluzo, the Guardian claimed on Saturday, trained Obama in grassroots politics over a decade ago.

Galluzo is quoted in the Guardian as saying:

In my experience the Labour party in your big cities like Manchester is one of the most alienating forces in Great Britain.

It is a very small group of people that controls the city council and they get voted in because they are Labour, not because of

…

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged barack obama, black and ethnic minorities, dorothy thornhill, labour party, liberal demcrats and manchester | 15 Comments

Victorian contraception – you might be surprised

By Iain Roberts | Sun 28th February 2010 - 11:20 am

Contrary to popular belief, the Victorians tended to be pretty open and frank about sex. The old myth about covering the legs of pianos or tables was a joke told by the Victorians about others.

This text is taken from “An exposition of the true Cause and only Cure of the Three Primary Evils: Poverty, Prostitution and Celibacy”, by Dr George Drysdale and published in 1852.

Excepting medical advances and terminology, it could almost have been written today.

The only means by which virtue and the progress of mankind are rendered possible is ‘Preventative Sexual Intercourse’. By this is meant sexual

…

Posted in News | Tagged history and The way we were | 1 Comment

Labour MP in “Who does my job, again?” confusion

By Iain Roberts | Wed 24th February 2010 - 10:10 am

Every now and again, some opinion poll or other asks people to name their own MP and politocos tutt when, invariably, a good proportion fail the test.

But, if you were to speak to every MP and ask them who the MP for their own constituency is, you’d hope for a better result.

Sadly, news reaches us that at least one MP may be unsure.

Dawn Butler, Labour MP for Brent South, held a coffee morning on Friday with Rt Hon Paul Boateng MP.

Posted in Humour | Tagged dawn butler and paul boateng | 1 Comment

Daily View 2×2: 24 February 2010

By Iain Roberts | Wed 24th February 2010 - 8:10 am

On this day in 1920 (according to the nice people at Wikipedia), the Nazi Party was founded.

The days when the Daily Mail publically paraded its sympathies for the Nazis are long gone – their interests lie elsewhere these days…

2 Stories

The story Mail hacks have been waiting for

This story must have felt like Christmas and Easter rolled into one for reporters at the Daily Mail – it’s got everything.

Posted in Daily View | Tagged criminal records bureau, daily mail, david cameron and womens hour | 2 Comments

Girls in crisis? Hold on a minute.

By Iain Roberts | Mon 22nd February 2010 - 12:51 pm

…it is becoming increasingly clear that teenage girls are a stand-alone demographic in crisis

So says a report in Sunday’s Observer, looking at the pressures faced by teenage girls and the effects it has on their lives, and it’s far from alone.

As Mark Pack reported here on Sunday, the Evening Standard and Telegraph both reported on concerns of girls becoming sexualised at ever younger ages.

Just hold on a moment, though.

Yes, teenage girls have problems. And it may well be that there are specific measures the State can take to reduce those problems, such as the regulation …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged evening standard, real women, the observer and the telegraph | 8 Comments

Labour Election Campaign Quotations

By Iain Roberts | Sun 21st February 2010 - 11:39 am

A few quotes from Labour’s Campaign Quotations book from the 1951 General Election.

Back in the days before the Internet (yes, young people, it didn’t always exist), Labour published this 300 page book of quotes from friend and foe to help its eager activists.

Socialism is a system of national co-operation. It is based upon the principle of co-operation, as opposed to the principle of competition. It is based on the principle of collectivism as opposed to the principle of individualism. It is union as against disunion, order as against anarchy. It means each for all and all

…

Posted in News | Tagged history, labour party, The way we were and winston churchill | 5 Comments

Salford Council bans tweeting – is it right?

By Iain Roberts | Wed 17th February 2010 - 9:31 am

As the Manchester Evening News reports:

Councillors in Salford will be banned from using Twitter in meetings.

Gatherings of the full council at Salford’s town hall have been covered live by councillors via their micro-blogging profiles.

The debates have attracted hundreds of followers, but town hall bosses have now banned members from using the site during meetings.

I have to admit to being rather confused by this opposition to Twitter that’s creeping across a few Town Halls.

The argument is that councillors who are twittering can’t be paying attention, but how can you report on a meeting if you’re not paying attention to it?

At …

Posted in Local government, Online politics and Op-eds | Tagged salford and twitter | 7 Comments

Daily View 2×2: 17 February 2010

By Iain Roberts | Wed 17th February 2010 - 8:20 am

It’s Wednesday 17th February and for me, like so many other Lib Dem activists, another day of delivering leaflets and knocking on doors (plus a Council meeting in the evening).

On this day in 1933 prohibition ended in the United States, and in 2003 London got a new congestion charge. There, wasn’t that interesting.

2 Lib Dem-related Stories

Lib Dem voters are the kinkiest

Thanks to Sara Scarlett for spotting this report in the Telegraph. There’s lots there on the sex lives of supporters of the three main parties, including:

Posted in Daily View | Tagged chris davies, guido fawkes, jay jethwa and shirley brown | 1 Comment

Labour candidate quits in targetting spat

By Iain Roberts | Tue 16th February 2010 - 9:22 am

It can be a harsh blow for any parliamentary candidate. You’ve filled in the forms, been through the selection process, made your speeches, answered the questions and, in a fiercely fought contest that may even have involved more than one applicant, emerged victorious to represent your party in the General Election.

And then you discover that the seat, in which your party has failed to top 13% of the vote in either of the last two elections, is unaccountably not having tens of thousands of pounds poured into it by the central party; nor are activists from across the region …

Posted in General Election | 12 Comments

MPs’ expenses: Clegg’s proposal gains ground

By Iain Roberts | Tue 16th February 2010 - 8:41 am

As reported in the press last May:

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, called for MPs to be banned from making a profit from selling second homes which they bought using their Commons allowances.

He will prevent Liberal Democrat MPs making money out of selling such a property after having their mortgage interest paid by the taxpayer – and wants the rule extended to all MPs. Any profits from the sale of a property would be handed back to the Exchequer.

And today:

The head of the new authority tasked with overhauling MPs’ expenses has said profits made on taxpayer-funded second

…

Posted in News | Tagged mps expenses and nick clegg | 8 Comments

Many women still unsympathetic about rape

By Iain Roberts | Mon 15th February 2010 - 9:10 am

A survey of a thousand men and women in London reveals that most women asked believe that the victim of rape is sometimes at least partly to blame.

Almost three-quarters of women said if a rape victim got into bed with the assailant before an attack they should accept some responsibility.

One-third blamed victims who had dressed provocatively or gone back to the attacker’s house for a drink.

More than half of those of both sexes questioned said there were some circumstances when a rape victim should accept responsibility for an attack.

These figures are nothing new. A 2005 survey found …

Posted in News | Tagged crime | 14 Comments

Make your mind up, Dave – should peers’ tax affairs be private or not?

By Iain Roberts | Sun 14th February 2010 - 4:16 pm

Confusion reigns in the Conservative Party over whether or not MPs’ and Peers’ tax affairs should be private.

Back in December, Cameron said

If you want to be in the Houses of Parliament… you need to be, or be treated as, a full UK taxpayer. We would pass that law if we get elected… as rapidly as we could.

Now we have Eric Pickles saying

Lord Aschcroft is entitled to his privacy.

and George Osborne saying

We live in a country where people are entitled to a private relationship with the Inland Revenue.

So which is it?

Are MPs and peers entitled …

Posted in News | Tagged david cameron, eric pickles, george osborne and lord ashcroft | 5 Comments

What do Colin Firth, Kate Winslett, Andrew Motion & Brian Eno have in common?

By Iain Roberts | Sun 14th February 2010 - 2:28 pm

According to today’s Observer, and blogged by Paul Walter, the Lib Dems are doing surprisingly well in the celebrity supporter stakes.

For Labour, long time backer J K Rowling (who surely could match the Ashcroft money and hardly notice it had gone, if the mood took her) is joined by David Tennant. He must be a worry for Labour – Tennant’s support may lose Gordon the Dalek vote his only-slighty-too-authoritarian government seem to have spent the last 13 years attracting.

The Conservatives meanwhile have Carol Vorderman, Kirstie Allsopp* and Trevor ‘bong’ MacDonald. Older readers will remember Carol …

Posted in General Election | Tagged andrew motion, brian eno, carol vorderman, chris martin, coldplay, colin firth, daleks, david tennant, j k rowling, john cleese, kate winslet, razorlight and the kinks | 4 Comments

Foie gras? Pah! Here’s what real (French)men ate

By Iain Roberts | Sun 14th February 2010 - 11:01 am

Today’s literary delicacy, served up for your pleasure, is an account by Edward Stourton of the (now banned) French dish of ortolans.

These tiny songbirds are pretty little things, with greenish heads, yellow throats and brown and black striped backs. They must be captured alive and then left for a month to gorge themselves on grapes and figs in a dark box (some connoisseurs prefer to blind them altogether); once they have swollen themselves to a grotesque size they are drowned in Armagnac, roasted and eaten whole, bones, feathers and all. Tradition dictates that the diners should cover their

…

Posted in News | Tagged history and The way we were | 6 Comments

Policing expenses a snip at £10,000 per MP

By Iain Roberts | Thu 11th February 2010 - 7:28 am

Radio 4’s Today Programme has revealed the cost of the new parliamentary body to police MPs’ expenses: around £6.5 million a year, with 80 staff and a boss pulling in £100k.

Nice work if you can get it, but surely it raises serious questions about the new system.

The total amount current and former MPs are being asked to repay, covering claims over several years, is a touch over a million pounds.

That means the new cost of checking those expenses and ruling whether they’re legitimate is many times higher than the amount the public purse was previously losing where …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged mps expenses | 3 Comments

Daily View 2×2: Wednesday 10 February

By Iain Roberts | Wed 10th February 2010 - 7:41 am

Pick up a newspaper or turn on the radio and TV this morning and there’s only one story filling up the front pages and the airwaves…

Posted in Daily View | Tagged alex dingwall, barack obama, bertha joseph, helen duffett and homophobia | 4 Comments

Are the Tories resigned to pushing lobby fodder?

By Iain Roberts | Tue 9th February 2010 - 10:24 am

Look at a Lib Dem election campaign, whether it’s a sitting MP or target seat challenger, and you’ll invariably find a hard working local campaigner, a local champion, and leaflets full of local stories.

That’s not at all what you see in Conservative literature. Across many seats the Tories have all but given up promoting their local campaigning credentials, or selling their candidate as the best person to be the MP. True, you’ll always find a few token stories, but the vast majority of material hitting doormats promotes Cameron, and Cameron alone.

Most of their firepower pushes the message that …

Posted in General Election, News and Op-eds | Tagged chris huhne | 6 Comments

The John Terry Plan

By Iain Roberts | Sun 7th February 2010 - 3:34 pm

Here’s the plan. We take a bunch of teenage lads. We pay them tens of thousands of pounds a week, tell them how wonderful they are and have 40,000 fans chant their names at football matches each week.

We eagerly follow their testosterone and cash-fuelled antics as they do the sorts of things lads in their late teens and twenties across the country do: get drunk, cop off and all the rest of it.

We happily encourage young women to see them as a meal ticket that’ll at the very least show the ladies a good time and …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged john terry | 8 Comments

Op-eds

Mathew on Monday: “We need to be bold” (Mathew Hulbert)
As a party we must be better defined for the 2029 general election (Chris Bowers)
From national averages to local realities: inequality in our communities (Tom Walker)
We do have a two tier system, Part 2 (Neil Hickman)
A Federal Britain: 3. Fiscal Federalism and a complete constitutional settlement (Iain Donaldson)

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