Greg Mulholland MP (Leeds North West) is the first convenor of the new Liberal Democrat Backbench Group. On being appointed he said,
The Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party has to work in a completely different environment than before and it is important that the voice of the Lib Dem backbenchers is heard.
We look forward to working constructively with Ministers and the Liberal Democrat leadership to make the government programme as positive as possible in these difficult times, as well as bringing a distinctively Liberal Democrat perspective to some debates.
Given the role of various Conservative backbench MP groupings in exerting pressure from their …
I can remember JFK being assassinated and being taught to say that Alec Douglas Home was Prime Minister, but really my Liberalism dates from the early 1970s when my father left us (an experience that taught me I was not a Tory) and the Liberals were winning by-elections.
I realised that I was not a Socialist a couple of years before that when Boxmoor County Primary School demanded a letter from your parents before you were allowed not to have custard with your pudding.
2. When did you start blogging?
The first post on Liberal England is dated 4 March 2004.
However, I did write the diary of Whittington (Susan Kramer’s cat) during the first London Mayoral election in 2000. That has some claim to be the first political blog in Britain.
3. Why did you start blogging?
I wanted a shop window for my various writings, but blogging soon became an important activity in its own right.
4. What five words would you use to describe your blog?
6. Which post have you most liked writing in the last year (and why)?
Andrew Mitchell, the great and the good, and me from September last year. It reminds me of my trip to New York for Oxfam and reports an event that no mainstream journalist would get to attend.
7. Which post have you most liked reading in the last year (and why)?
I was very impressed by The Contented Lib Dem’s series of posts on the abolition of the Educational Maintenance Allowance. They are summarised here. He or she argued a controversial case, backed it up with evidence and engaged with the commenters, getting the better of most of them. Unfortunately, nothing has appeared on that blog since.
8. What’s your favourite YouTube clip?
Assuming that the Bible and complete works of Steve Winwood are already on the island, how about this version of Dolphins by Tim Buckley?
Robert Pelletreau, a former American Ambassador in three of the countries very much in the news, Bahrain, Egypt and Tunisia, has highlighted how difficult it is to predict where protests will strike:
Tunisia had not seemed particularly shaky. It was a country that seemed to be doing many things right: universal education for men and women, low military spending, and positive economic growth. A large middle class was developing, and the country had become a popular tourist destination for Europeans. The government was authoritarian but also determinedly secular and pro-Western.
The role of social media has, with some justification, been given …
The Lib Dem councillor at the centre of the “racist” Twitter storm has been suspended from his party.
Cllr Warren Swaine quoted an Ali G catchphrase “Is it because I is black” in a tweet about mixed race Labour MP Chuka Umunna when he was appearing on Question Time…
Henk van Klaveren, Liberal Democrat national office spokesman, said: “The Liberal Democrats have a zero tolerance policy on racist comments and behaviour. The regional party has suspended Councillor Warren Swaine pending further investigation.”
Lib Dem Voice’s own Ryan Cullen (and the man who gives us the great Liberal Democrat blogs aggregator) has put together a handy tool for generating your own No To AV campaign slogans, based on their recent advertising campaign. I suspect the No campaign may not like quite all the slogans you can generate at http://av.argh.tc/o-matic/ though…
A quick follow up to our story about the lively debate within the European Commission over the push from Chris Huhne and others for bigger emission cut targets – Denmark has now backed Chris Huhne’s position, as The Guardian reported:
The Danish government has stepped into the fray over Europe’s climate change targets, boosting the attempts of a group of member states to opt for more ambitious emissions cuts.
Denmark on Thursday set out its own vision for energy supplies in 2050, showing how the country could meet its aim of becoming independent of coal, oil and natural gas by
Readers of today’s Observer story by Toby Helm regarding Lib Dem ministers contributing 10% of their salaries to the party may have thought it had a familiar ring to it. That’d be because it was first reported back in December, as we blogged back then. Ah well, nothing like old news 🙂
Britain’s boardrooms are “in crisis” over their failure to increase the number of women in their ranks and will face quotas if they do not embrace new voluntary targets to double the female representation on boards within four years.
Lord Davies, who has been leading a government inquiry on the issue of women in the boardroom, has recommended that FTSE 100 companies aim for at least a quarter of their boards to be made up of women by 2015, while FTSE 350 companies should clearly outline the percentage of women they expect to see on their boards
Today’s Guardian has a profile of Lib Dem peer Lord (Matthew) Oakeshott:
Lord Oakeshott is the master of the one-liner. Treasury officials, in his opinion, “couldn’t negotiate themselves out of a paper bag”. Bankers’ pay particularly irks him: “If this is bonus restraint, my name is Bob Diamond,” is one of the most memorable remarks uttered by any politician this year…
68% of our members have voted in favour of constitutional amendments which end the rulings that restrict membership to those already in Labour or entitled to be so.
The vote represents a clear sign as to the future direction of progressive politics, a resounding
The FactCheck blog has been running its eyes over the claims made by No2AV about how much introducing the alternative vote would cost (the subject too of my letter published in yesterday’s Independent).
Here’s what they conclude:
No to AV claims that the combined costs of a referendum, implementing electronic vote counting and educating voters will cost Britain a cool £250 million. And just over half of this will be splashed out on shiny new electronic vote counting machines, the campaigners say…
The problem is however, that there are no current plans to implement electronic voting machines in the event AV passes…
Last month I spoke at an event organised by the University College London’s Constitution Unit on how the Liberal Democrats ended up in coalition with the Conservatives and the progress of the coalition so far:
Here’s your starter for ten in our weekend slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…
Either actual or projected falls in house prices are almost always described as bad news in both the media and political circles. Yet it is also common to hear people complain about the lack of affordable housing, difficulties getting together a sufficient deposit or problems with the cost of mortgages – and those complaints have been common in both times of boom and bust.
So if predictions for a fall in house prices this year turn out to be right, will that be …
Two significant changes of staff are happening at the CentreForum think tank, with current director Julian Astle leaving in April after three years as director and with Tim Leunig joining as Chief Economist. Tim will be familiar to many of our readers as a regular commenter and occasional contributor on this site.
In 2009 the divorce rate in England and Wales fell to 10.5 divorcing people per thousand married population compared with the 2008 figure of 11.2, a fall of 6.3 per cent. The divorce rate is at its lowest level since 1977 when there were 10.3 divorcing people per thousand married population.
Courtesy of a written answer in Parliament, we have a top-level comparison of how the previous Labour Government’s spending plans for the end of this Parliament compare with what the Coalition Government is now planning.
Against the benchmark of what public spending would have been if welfare rules and the like had been left unchanged and other public expenditure increased in line with inflation (i.e. DEL spending increased in line with inflation, AME spending based on no rule changes), Labour was planning to cut spending by £56 billion.
By contrast, the Coalition Government is planning to cut spending by £81 billion. …
Nick Clegg often talks about social mobility, but is it the right focus for the party’s social efforts?
The day after he was elected Liberal Democrat Leader, Nick Clegg set up a commission to look at social mobility in the UK. In the two years since then, he has regularly returned to the topic, and it has become a priority of his for party and then government policy-making, alongside making frequent appearances in speeches, slogans and soundbites from leading party figures.
Yet it is a phrase that risks becoming over-used, for it fails to communicate effectively what makes us Liberal Democrats …
Not quite what Liberal Democrats always says about Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles, but his pronouncement this week about access to local government meetings was spot on.
Councils should open up their public meetings to local news ‘bloggers’ and routinely allow online filming of public discussions as part of increasing their transparency, Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles said today.
To ensure all parts of the modern-day media are able to scrutinise Local Government, Mr Pickles believes councils should also open up public meetings to the ‘citizen journalist’ as well as the mainstream media, especially as important budget
Take the increasing importance attached to social networking and its ability to influence the political world. Add in a tradition of wanting to influence the public and other governments. Turn down your ethics meter. Shake together and what do you get? This:
The US government is offering private intelligence companies contracts to create software to manage “fake people” on social media sites and create the illusion of consensus on controversial issues.
The contract calls for the development of “Persona Management Software” which would help the user create and manage a variety of distinct fake profiles online. The job listing was discussed in
Previously I’ve dug out a City of London Alderman election leaflet from the 1930s which showed how many of the message in election leaflets have stayed the same over the decades, even if the presentation has changed massively.
This time I’ve dug out a single-sided leaflet from Doncaster in 1950, for Labour MP Ray Gunter who was moving seat from Essex to northern England following the redrawing of boundaries.
It is typical of a style of leaflet that last for many years after women were first given* the right to vote in Parliamentary elections – from the wife of a candidate …
The Financial Times has been reporting this week again about the ongoing vigorous debate within government over the forthcoming Green Investment Bank and how much power it will have:
Nick Clegg is now the main driving force of the government’s “green investment bank” amid a Whitehall struggle over how precisely the new entity will function…
The Treasury is determined to hold back financing until the deficit is under control, towards the end of the current parliament. Officials have also argued for the bank to be a fund with little or no leverage.
Here’s the question I’m submitting to the Report of the Federal Executive at the party’s spring conference in Sheffield:
The report makes only very brief mention of several important topics (e.g. the party’s KPIs and review into the general election, for neither of which are details provided). Overall it is far shorter than previous FE reports, with for example less than a third of the words of that from the first spring conference after the 2001 general election. Will the FE consider providing more substantive reports in future?
The Federal Executive’s report is being debated at 5:30pm on the Saturday in the main …
The Government has overhauled the way in which the number of rough sleepers is counted in order to more accurately show the reality of what is happening around the country. The new figures show that on average 1,768 people sleep rough each night, compared to 440 under the old system.
The big increase is due to every council taking part in the new counting measure. Previously figures were only gathered from areas considered hotspots for rough sleeping. In addition, the figures are now verified by the umbrella group Homeless Link rather than relying on government officials.
The fact that it is AV on offer and not one of the other systems is the product of three specific factors: the offer on PR made by the last Labour government to woo the Lib Dems; the arithmetic of the general election result; and the mechanics of the deal between David Cameron and Nick Clegg that delivered the coalition administration. It is the product of specific circumstances. It is also the only game in town. In the world of realpolitik an academic debate
A report published by the Institute for Public Policy Research North shows polarisation between rich and poor was rising even before the recession of 2008 took hold…
The report found that, of the northern regions, the north-west has the greatest pay inequality, with the top 20% earning £427 more a week than the bottom 20%.
The greatest disparities are found in London, where the top 20% earn £686 more a week than the bottom 20%.
During the week I commented on how “Community Politics” is a term becoming worryingly scarce amongst the public utterances of senior Liberal Democrats. One practical example of this is how so much of the running, both intellectual and practical, in political circles on developing social investment is happening in the Conservative Party.
Finding ways to improve the availability of funds to social enterprises is an issue that has got increasing intention in recent years and is an important part of the Conservative vision for a Big Society bank, but Liberal Democrats have been mostly silent as it has become all about the Big Society, with Community Politics rarely getting a mention on the national stage even from Liberal Democrats.
If you are not familiar with the issue, here is an example of a social enterprise taken from the government consultation paper published during the week:
Bikeworks was set up in 2007 with the aim of using bikes to tackle environmental, social and economic challenges in Tower Hamlets, east London. Bikeworks provides employment and training opportunities for marginalised individuals in recycling and refurbishing second-hand bikes. Bikeworks’ approach is to develop and build on the best of small-scale community cycling initiatives but to do so on a greater scale, achieve significant outcomes and build a viable replicable model. They recently opened a second community cycling hub in Kensington and Chelsea, west London, in September 2010, and have aspirations to replicate the service further. Bikeworks’ income is earned through contracts to provide a range of organisational cycling services to local authorities, civil society organisations and corporate clients. It also generates income from the retail sale of recycled bikes and the provision of repairs and maintenance services to the public.
The consultation paper looks at how more investment funding can be made available for such enterprises, particularly through fixing flaws in the current state of the financial markets (section 3.10 lists five major areas where markets are not working properly in this regard). Here it is in full:
Here’s your starter for ten in our weekend slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…
During the week, Lord McNally said in Parliament, as part of an answer to a written question, that “The Government do not have a role in encouraging party political activity on the ground”.
Is he right: should it be part of the government’s role to encourage party political activity or should government have nothing to do with it? For example, should the government fund (directly or indirectly) publicity campaigns to encourage people to get involved in politics, including via parties? Should it …
The Tories are usually very supportive of victims of crime … Unfortunately, their sympathy for victims doesn’t seem to extend to the crime of rape. Shadow Tory minister for Community Safety in the Scottish Parliament Bill Aitken has apparently asked the Sunday Herald whether a victim of an horrendous rape in Glasgow earlier this week was a prostitute. This woman was dragged down a lane by 3 men and raped. This was the latest in a series of similar assaults in Glasgow.
A quick update to my previous post about the Green Investment Bank, where I wrote:
Largely unreported there has been a heavy debate over whether the Green Investment Bank will in effect simply by a pot for government grants or whether it will have the ability to operate much like a traditional bank. The more bank-like the Green Investment Bank can be, the more it will be able to do with its initial funding if, for example, it is able to issue bonds and underwrite loans. Helped by the backing of some Conservatives, such as Oliver Letwin, Chris Huhne seems
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...
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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
Peter Martin 
Peter Davies 
David Wright 