Author Archives: Mark Pack

As if giving two major speeches today wasn’t enough, Nick also has an op-ed column in The Times, titled How to stop future funding scandals:

The Derek Conway affair is not the first, nor likely to be the last, in a long line of political scandals over money. While such scandals have formed a steady trickle for generations, the floodgates seemed to open 18 months ago with the cash-for-peerages investigation. It may be tempting for politicians to argue that each scandal is separate from the others, but the British people simply don’t see it that way.

It’s time to admit there’s a

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Nick’s making two major speeches today – on mental health (to the Guardian Public Services summit) and on the economy (in the City of London).

The mental health speech has been released and you can read it in full over on the party website. The headline message from the speech is in the party’s news release:

In a key speech on health service reform, Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg unveiled plans to guarantee everyone suffering from mental health problems a first appointment for treatment within 13 weeks of referral.

The plans were launched as the Party reveals new figures showing that the

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Quite a lot if you agree with Alex or James. The cause of their ire is Labour’s plans to give the government the right to remove the jury from coroner inquests, and replace the coroner with an appointee of central government’s choice.

As the BBC reports:

The government is facing a backlash over controversial proposals to remove juries from some inquests.

Provisions in its counter-terrorism bill, published last month, would also allow home secretaries to replace coroners with their own appointees.

Ministers insist the new powers would be used sparingly and the vast majority of inquests will still stay public.

But critics

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The incumbent pro-Western Serbian President, Boris Tadic, has beaten the pro-Russian nationalist Tomislav Nikolic by around 51% – 47%.

The story so far: Alan Johnson runs for Labour Deputy Leader. His campaign receives a donation in the name of someone who is on the electoral register and eligible to vote. It then turns out the donor was really passing on money from someone else (brother-in-law). This isn’t allowed because (as with the David Abrahams affair) the original source of the money must be named.

Alan Johnson’s defence? His team checked the person who handed over the money, and there was no way they could have known the money was really coming from someone else.

As initial explanations in other donation sagas have …

For the Conservatives, today’s papers bring bad news for four different MPs: the MP couple who were able to carry on claiming for the cost of a home even after they had paid for it, the one who employed someone at the other end of the country and there’s more about Derek Conway.

UPDATE: And then there is the case of Anthony Steen…

Today’s papers brings a bumper crop of new allegations, defences and updates relating to MPs and money.

On the Labour side, it is Wendy Alexander and Gordon Brown who are in the spotlight.

Earlier this week Nick Clegg gave a speech on social mobility:

I want to devolve power from the centre to communities and to individuals. I want to see local solutions applied to local problems, and I want to see the genius of grassroots innovation set free to drive up the standards of our public services, and deliver on the people’s priorities.

That does not mean an impotent state. Government will still have a role to play. Money must be allocated fairly to those delivering services, equality of access to public services must be guaranteed and core standards and entitlements must be firmly put

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When Nick Clegg took on the leadership of the Liberal Democrat party just six weeks ago, he promised to “at least” double the number of Liberal Democrat MPs within two general elections.

It was an ambitious pledge, particularly in this age of two-party politics.

But, sitting in an armchair in the corner of his new office after polishing off a piece of carrot cake lying half-eaten on his desk, Clegg looks confident and relaxed.

Read more here.

There were two pieces of party swapping this week:

1. Stevenage Conservative councillor Marion Mason switched to UKIP.
2. George Galloway quit Respect, announcing plans to run a new left-wing ticket for the London Assembly elections. At least, Respect said he’s quit the party, but he said he hasn’t quit the party. Which all things considered is no more farcical than the party holding two separate national conferences last November, one for each faction.

Really rather a lot it would seem, at least according to this week’s Tribune:

LABOUR finance chiefs are making ‘frantic’ attempts to reschedule up to £14 million of outstanding loans amid legal warnings that the party is ‘skating on thin ice’ in its financial management.

Officers have been told in private talks with financial advisers that radical steps might have to be considered to restructure the party in order to limit the personal liabilities of its national executive committee members if finances are not brought under tighter control …

Discussions on whether the party could be faced with prospect of being forced into

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