Yesterday Michael Gove, finally, announced the government’s proposals for replacing the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA) scheme. As previously trailed, Liberal Democrat pressure has secured more than £100m extra for the plans.
The £180m being spent on the new scheme compares to the £560m cost of the EMA. At first glance, that is a large cut. But if you view the key objective for the funds to be helping more people to take part in post-16 education, then the picture looks very different. That’s because several different studies of EMA concludes that the vast majority of its funds went to people …
Jonathan Calder reports on the latest goings on in the lively world of Leicester politics, including Conservative Councillor Nigel Porter resigning from his party and deciding to fight his ward for the Liberal Democrats in May’s elections.
A news release from the party brings the news of the following three appointments:
Martin Horwood, co-chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party Committee for International Affairs (replacing Tim Farron, who has stood down on becoming President)
Julian Huppert, co-chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party Committee for Transport
Stephen Lloyd, co-chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party Committee for Northern Ireland
Annette Brooke, co-chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party Committee for Communities and Local Government (covering for Simon Hughes for six months during his tenure as the Government’s Advocate for Access to Education
The full list of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party Committee …
It’s been rather a self-inflicted wound by the Coalition Government to leave such a long gap between announcing that it would abolish the Education Maintenance Allowance and publishing details of what will be introduced in its stead. I’m happy to wait until we know what the replacement will be like before judging whether the EMA abolition is a good move or not, but it’s not exactly a surprise that many people have made up their minds knowing only part of the story given that huge gap.
That said, the substance of the issue is an important one and the noises coming …
Over the weekend I started up a ‘draft Mike Tuffrey‘ page on Facebook to encourage Mike Tuffrey, one of our London Assembly members, to put his name forward as our candidate for the 2012 Mayor elections.
Imagining your fantasy perfect candidate is always fun (a cross between Paddy Ashdown and Shirley Williams perhaps?) but as the actual selection is nearing for its second attempt, I’m not won over by the likely choices on offer – and I think Mike has an awful lot to contribute.
Why Mike Tuffrey
As a long-standing member of the London Assembly, and the leader of our group 2006-2010, he’s got a huge knowledge of London’s issues and the track record in power of both Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson. He’s also regularly gone toe-to-toe with them at events such as Mayor’s Questions at City Hall – and frequently come out on top. He’s also consistently shown a passion for environmental issues which are crucial for London and important to so many Liberal Democrats.
Here’s a simple question: how bad do events have to get in a country before it appears on the mainstream political agenda in this country?
Is having the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimate that up to half a million people have had to flee their homes as a result of violence enough?
Or is having the UN High Commissioner for Refugees double its estimate in the last few days to a million people having fled (out of a population of 22 million)?
Or is having credible reports of sexual violence, summary execution and people being burnt alive?
The pollsters MORI have recently re-released some of their polling data from January and the question of whether or not people like a party paints a very different picture from the usual voting intention figures.
Overall it shows the Conservatives the least liked party, Labour (despite its voting intention poll ratings at the moment) only marginally in the positive and the Liberal Democrats in the negatives, but with still a very healthy chunk of the population liking the party.
For the Conservatives and Labour these figures reinforce comments often made about them – that the detoxification of the Conservative brand never …
A top Liberal Democrat candidate for Holyrood has resigned from the party.
Hugh O’Donnell was Liberal Democrat MSP for Central Scotland before the start of campaigning earlier this month for the Scottish Parliament elections.
It is understood he was unhappy with the direction of the party in Scotland and the coalition in Westminster.
A Liberal Democrat spokeswoman said: “We have accepted Hugh O’Donnell’s resignation.”
Hugh O’Donnell has been pretty critical of the party for some time, so much so that seeing some of his comments made to posts of mine on Facebook I did a double-take wondering if his Facebook …
Nick Clegg has called for widespread reform of Britain’s banking sector in the hope that the country becomes less reliant on what he called “overwhelmingly important” companies.
An interim report on the subject from the Banking Commission is due out next month and Clegg has pre-empted its release with calls for the influence of the banks to be reduced in the interest of the wider economy…
The banking commission will deliver initial findings on April 11th, with a final report due by the end of September.
In an interview with Reuters this month, Lib Dem business minister Vince
But The Voice’s readers are pretty typical of the wider world in this respect at least. Until the end of yesterday, for example, Libya had got 54 mentions in Parliament so far this year, the Ivory Coast only six.
Yet this week has been another bloody one as defeated President Gbagbo refuses to leave office. The UN says 52 more people were murdered …
The higher your personal income, the more likely you are to under-estimate how well off you are compared to other people in Britain.
That was one of the findings in a piece of MORI research from 2008 which looked at people’s actual level of personal income and how they thought that level of income compared to everyone else.
Of people who were in the richest 10%, nearly four out of five (79%) thought they were less well off than that and were not actually amongst the richest 10%. Only a fifth (21%) got their place in the richest 10% correct.
Nato has agreed to take command of enforcing the no-fly zone over Libya from the US.
But Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen made clear that other aspects of the operation would remain in the hands of the current coalition for now…
The US initially agreed to lead enforcement of the UN resolution, but made clear it wanted only a limited role and would hand over responsibility as soon as possible.
But the handover to Nato became bogged down when Turkey made clear its view that action should focus directly on enforcing the no-fly zone and arms embargo, rather than
Earlier today the Liberal Democrat Press Office’s Phil Reilly tweeted, “Income Tax cut – from the front page of the @libdems manifesto to the pockets of 25m taxpayers”.
Certainly better to pick from the front page than the back page, as announcing a barcode would have been lacking a little in interest (except, perhaps, to one of my former economics lecturers, who once tried to persuade us that the checksums on barcodes matched up with a warning from the Bible and predicted an imminent Second Coming).
That however wasn’t the only major policy was a distinct Liberal Democrat flavour to it. So too was the news about pensions. As Stephen Williams MP put it, “Proposals for a £140 flat rate pension, together with the Lib Dem commitment of restoring the earnings link, will ensure our pensioners get a fair deal”.
Both of those announcements were unsurprising, but one decision that had been up in the air was over the Green Investment Bank and how much power it really would have. George Osborne’s previous strange absence from the debate was put to rest when he announced a series of pieces of good news on the Green Investment Bank: starting a year earlier, £2 billion more in funds and, crucially, it can borrow. As Paul Waugh put it “Big victory for Cable”, not to mention Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg, who had taken the lead in settling the internal debate over how much powers to give.
Amongst the details was success for the long-standing Liberal Democrat calls for water rates relief in the South West, though overall the details did not add up to a particularly green budget, Green Investment Bank aside. The IFS’s initial analysis is that, “The Chancellor also insisted that green taxes will rise as a proportion of total receipts. This remains the case on current Treasury forecasts, but by the narrowest of margins”. Some of the non-financial measures, such as the new standard for zero-carbon homes, give the Budget a greater overall green tinge than the pure financial numbers show. How deep that tinge is will depend on how measures such as the presumption in favour of sustainable development pan out when the details are settled.
Here’s the email from Nick Clegg to party supporters about the Budget:
Today the coalition government has announced a budget that will return the UK to sustainable and balanced economic growth and which puts helping Alarm Clock Britain at its heart.
We are increasing the income tax threshold by £630 to £8105; lifting hundreds of thousands of low income earners out of paying income tax and putting £126 back in the pockets of low and middle income earners. This is in addition to the last budget that took nearly a million of the lowest income earners out of tax and made millions of hard working individuals £200 better off. We are making a real difference in people’s lives – from the front page of our manifesto to people’s back pockets.
Alarm Clock Britain will be further helped by the measures we have taken to give motorists a fairer deal. We are shifting taxation away from the pumps and onto the broader shoulders of the oil companies instead – with fuel duty being cut and taxation on oil companies rising.
At the same time we are making the wealthy pay their fair share with increased measures to tackle tax avoidance, higher charges for non-doms and a special tax on private jets. This budget also places green growth front and centre – the Green Investment Bank will begin operation next year with £3bn of capitalisation, delivering an additional £18bn of investment in green infrastructure by 2014-15.
We were left a toxic economic legacy by Labour with a record deficit and debt. Under Ed Balls Labour have no answers and solutions to the mess they left. The difficult decisions we have taken in government have rebuilt confidence in Britain’s ability to pay its way, kept interest rates lower than they would otherwise have been, and have provided the stability that business and individuals need to invest in the UK’s economy.
There are no easy decisions in this budget. But we are delivering a budget which will mean that that those who can pay more will; and those who are working hard to make ends meet will get a helping hand. This budget is progressive, green, liberal and what our country needs at this time.
It’s boring and slow and tedious and old-fashioned to wait until you hear what someone from another party says before deciding whether or not you agree with it, isn’t it?
So hats off to those forward thinkers in Manchester Labour party who haven’t had to wait for the Budget to put down a motion for the forthcoming council meeting:
Motion – George Osborne’s Budget
Council notes the damaging impact of George Osborne’s budget on the people of Manchester. Councillors: Leese (proposer), Karney (seconder), Priest, J Battle, N Murphy, Evans, Andrews
Two pieces of good news today where a combination of Liberal Democrat and some Conservatives in government have won out over the right of the Conservative Party.
First up, human trafficking – where the opposition of Conservative Euro-sceptics to Britain opting in to the new EU directive has been overcome. Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Committee on Home Affairs, Justice and Equality, Tom Brake said:
“Nick Clegg has just won a powerful victory over the Conservatives, appointing a Bill of Rights commission which is certain to leave the ECHR intact” – The Spectator has the news.
As Dr Tim Morgan points out in his incisive Centre for Policy Studies pamphlet, Five Fiscal Fallacies, “No one should imagine that the Coalition’s plans amount to a major reversal
1. What’s your formative political memory?
The morning after the 1992 election – remembering my parents’ disappointment that Labour hadn’t won (again) and the pervading sense of gloom of another Tory government.
I also remember one election in the 80s when my parents displayed an SDP and a Labour poster in the same window!
2. When did you start blogging?
2007
3. Why did you start blogging?
I started because I wanted to communicate to my constituents what I did as a councillor on their behalf.
4. What five words would you use to describe your blog?
Local
Personal
Topical
Passionate
Committed
5. What five words would you use to describe your political views?
Humanistic
Instinctive
Pragmatic
Empathetic
Social
6. Which post have you most liked writing in the last year (and why)?
It’s the post I wrote about the budget-making process in Reading Council. I felt proud to have played a role in delivering one of the most difficult budgets in Reading Council’s history whilst protecting key services, and I wanted to contrast our approach with that taken by Labour opposition which I thought was totally lacking, obviously.
7. Which post have you most liked reading in the last year (and why)?
I really enjoy Mark Thomposon’s posts as they are always intelligent and thought-provoking. I enjoyed this post as I thought it was a point that need making about Labour.
That’s the theme of the article I’ve done for the IPPR’s quarterly journal which has a series of articles looking at political realignment, including Nick Boles making a pitch for the centre-right.
It’s Parliamentary arithmetic which predominantly determines what options are actually open to politicians. That matters far more than any personal preferences of senior politicians, so the choices that are made are shaped far more by the results of what voters do than by what politicians might prefer:
The voters have a habit of making fools of those who make political predictions, even those (and perhaps particularly those) who make long-term predictions … So enthusiastically confident predictions about the long-term future of this coalition government – less than one year old and yet to face a national electoral test of any sort – tell you more about the self-confidence of those making the predictions than they do about the likely course of future events.
Here are some selections from today’s debate in Parliament so far on the United Nations resolution on Libya and subsequent military action which touch on the questions of international law, the Liberal Democrat position, what is happening in other countries and the question of Iraq:
Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD):In view of the obviously barbaric attacks by Gaddafi on his own people, does the Prime Minister agree that those officials and military chiefs who are still standing firm with Gaddafi stand every chance of being hauled before the war crimes tribunal?
The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. The
Yesterday’s BBC Politics Show included a feature on Lembit Opik’s hopes to be the Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of London. It’s still available online to watch (see here; it starts at 47:42).
Most notable was the news that no Liberal Democrat MP, GLA member or council leader in London is backing him, that he would hold a referendum on asking the public to pay considerably more in order to fund a 24-hour tube and that he twice described his political views as libertarian.
When the public is searching for information about prominent politicians online, one of the most common things looked for is their Twitter account – so says the data from search engine giant Google.
Chances are you’ve noticed that as you start typing a search term into Google’s search box, it tries to guess what you are typing, suggesting several ways to complete what you are typing in. Those guesses are derived from Google’s huge data set of what people having been searching for online, so seeing what Google suggests also reveals what the most popular searches made by other people have …
So far, events in the Ivory Coast have received far less attention than those in Libya, even prior to the military intervention in the latter. Ivory Coast may not have the proximity to Europe of Libya, or a ruler to match the eye-catching nature of Colonel Gadaffi, but it has a President who has refused to leave office after losing an election and who has refused to cooperate fully with the UN.
UN troops have already been deployed to the country but a political stalemate has ensued as the UN has not been willing to authorise further steps, such as the …
Party conference in Sheffield saw the publication of Delivering Localism, a pamphlet from the Liberal Democrat Local Government Association Group which lays out the detailed policies being enacted by government to free up local councils and give them more power.
It’s very reliant on long lists of bullet points at times but it has some excellent content and is well worth a look through.
Oh, and Nick Clegg even uses “community politics” in the foreword; a response, so I hear, to my post on the matter. Ah, the power of blogging 🙂
Click on the icon below to view the document in full screen mode.
As part of Parliament’s deliberations over the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, this week the House of Lords debated the possibility of moving to weekend voting.
Weekend voting has been once briefly trialled (in Watford a decade ago). It was not a success then, but there are good reasons to try again given the details of how the trial was conducted – especially holding the weekend elections just after the usual national round of local elections, with the result that residents in Watford were seeing in all the national
Here’s your starter for ten in our weekend slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…
During the week Foreign Secretary William Hague talked of having a network of diplomats who are past their retirement age of 60 but can be called on to help out at times of international crisis. However Labour MP Frank Roy attacked the idea saying that the Foreign Office instead should be “nurturing young talent”.
What’s your view on this and more generally – should we do more to keep on the skills of people beyond 60, or should people be promptly moved out …
There’s been some promising chatter in the run up to next week’s Budget about two major changes to our tax system, both of which have often been talked about across the political spectrum and both of which politicians have previously ended up shying away from because of the political hurdles involved.
The move is expected to be signalled by George Osborne in his Budget next Wednesday. Although such a huge change would take years to implement, the Chancellor is determined to be seen as a reformer and not just
‘Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition’ is the full title for the largest non-government party in Parliament and has been around long enough for the oddity of its phrasing to be easily overlooked. But “Her Majesty’s”? And “Loyal”? They come from the idea that, however much those in power may wish the opposition to firmly stay out of power, there is a recognition that an effective Parliamentary democracy requires an effective opposition. “Loyal” too reflects the willingness of those who have lost an election to accept the result. Calmly leaving office, or accepting another period in opposition, may be a long established …
It’s been a common political refrain: Labour planned massive cuts in public spending, Labour lost the election and but then Labour campaign repeatedly against cuts without ever saying what it would have cut.
Having failed to derail the AV referendum with his highly implausible legal arguments, Labour peer Lord Falconer (who served in the previous Labour government, and was one of those who put the pressure on to have the Iraq war ruled legal) is at it again. This time he is trying to argue that people should vote No to AV because it will bring down the Coalition government and hasten Ed Miliband into 10 Downing Street without having to wait for any general election.
Except that it won’t.
Lord Falconer is right in as much as the Coalition’s program of …
Peter Martin @ Kira,
The words you quoted were from Peter Davies'. Not me. I wouldn't agree with raising VAT on energy to 15% right now. I'd leave it as is.
The point ...
Peter Martin “‘why can’t social care and NHS spending be treated as ‘investment’’. Of course, that wont wash”.
I'd agree if were talking about re...
Peter Martin There's really only two fiscal rules that make any sense:
1) If inflation caused by an overheating economy is the main issue, then governments should tax mor...
Peter Davies @Kira Collins You seem to have missed the bit about raising tax allowances. That primarily helps those on low wages....
David Wright According to this well-argued article (by Lib Dem councillor Mark Ellis), a simple wealth tax wouldn't work, but tax on TRANSFER of wealth could, if current tax...
Both of those announcements were unsurprising, but one decision that had been up in the air was over the Green Investment Bank and how much power it really would have. George Osborne’s 
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Martin Wainwright's Guardian obituary of Michael Meadowcroft
Evaluating different electoral systems for the House of Commons
Brexit and summer holidays
The shame of Liverpool Labour councillors taking their allowances but not turning up to do the work
Peter Martin 
Peter Davies 
David Wright 