Author Archives: NewsHound

NewsHound

LibLink: Chris Huhne – Voters should not give in to Tory blackmail

By NewsHound | Sat 24th April 2010 - 6:25 pm

Writing for the Financial Times, Lib Dem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne exposes the Tories’ scaremongering that a hung parliament will be a disaster for the economy. Here’s an excerpt:

is to scare the voters witless about the prospect of multi-party democracy and a real change in our corrupt political system. All manner of pestilence is threatened to befall the British people if they vote other than Tory. … Of the 14 countries that enjoy the top AAA rating for creditworthiness with all three rating agencies – Fitch, Moody’s, and Standard and Poor’s – 10 have coalitions or minority governments

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Posted in General Election and LibLink | Tagged and | 2 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Joan Ruddock isn’t telling the whole truth

By NewsHound | Sat 24th April 2010 - 2:20 pm

Here on The Voice, Mark Pack previously wrote about how Labour MP Joan Ruddock is claiming to have been more opposed to the Iraq war than she actually was. Now one of the Lib Dem local council candidates, Max Calo, has returned to the story on Comment is Free:

Questions have to be asked about what has moved Joan Ruddock to write a letter to voters trumpeting her record on the Iraq war. In a personally addressed letter to electors, she wrote:

“I have always acted with integrity and stuck to my principles – voting against the government going to war

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NewsHound

LibLink: Rebecca Jenkins – Tory press helped make up my mind who to vote for

By NewsHound | Fri 23rd April 2010 - 6:45 pm

During the election campaign, the Guardian’s Comment Is Free website is publishing posts by a number of about their polling booth intentions. Today, one of their authors, Rebecca Jenkins, declares her hand for Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems. Here’s an excerpt in which she explains why:

I never thought I would say this, but the Tory press has made up my mind for me. It was the array of front pages attacking Nick Clegg on Thursday that did it: the “Nazi” headline, the silly schoolboy word games, and even the Daily Telegraph’s marginally more dignified attempt to make a financial

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Posted in General Election | 4 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Stephen Tall – The tabloids’ desperate attack on Liberal Democrats

By NewsHound | Wed 21st April 2010 - 6:45 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, LDV Co-Editor Stephen Tall looks at the hysterical over-reaction of the rightwing press to the Lib Dems’ poll surge. It has got, he argues, “the rightwing papers running scared and flinging so much mud it insults their readers’ intelligence”. Here’s an excerpt:

Ever since Nick Clegg’s victory in that debate six days ago, the right-wing press, much like the Tory party, has been utterly paralysed, unsure whether to launch a full-tilt attack on the Lib Dems, or to patronise the party’s surge as the teenage tantrum of an electorate which should jolly well just grow up. …

What really worries the Mail and Murdoch about the Lib Dem poll ratings is this: they understand Nick Clegg’s party is a direct threat to the cosy status quo with which they are so comfortable. Don’t take my word for it: former Sun editor David Yelland made the point quite explicitly on these very pages just a couple of days ago in his explosive article, Nick Clegg’s rise could lock Murdoch and the media elite out of UK politics.

Will the Mail/Murdoch attacks work. Only time will tell, says Stephen, but notes that the newspapers are (to their chagrin) no longer as important as they might have once been:

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Posted in General Election and LibLink | Tagged , , and | 7 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Giles Wilkes – David Cameron, the Goliath

By NewsHound | Sun 18th April 2010 - 9:45 pm

Over ath The Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, Giles Wilkes – Lib Dem blogger, and chief economist for liberal think-tank Centre Forum – argues that its the Tories’ over-riding sense of entitlement which has left them bamboozled by the Lib Dem upsurge in support. Here’s an excerpt:

The Tories’ ascent to power was meant to have the inevitability of a family inheritance, something they are known to be keen on. Their reaction to a vanishing poll lead has all the outrage of an heir dispossessed by a long-ignored cousin. It shows a party that has long expected to win

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NewsHound

LibLink: James Graham – A new politics is up for grabs

By NewsHound | Sun 18th April 2010 - 7:45 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, Lib Dem blogger James Graham makes the argument that anyone wanting to transform politics in the UK at this election has the obvious solution in their hands: a vote for the Lib Dems: “Voting Lib Dem this time is the equivalent of pressing a bloody great reset button”.

But what if the result is that a high Lib Dem vote isn’t reflected in the number of Lib Dem MPs elected? Here’s James’s answer:

What we’ve seen over the past 48 hours is the possibility of a genuinely new approach. Instead of playing

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Posted in General Election and LibLink | Tagged | 1 Comment
NewsHound

LibLink: Stephen Tall on Nick Clegg’s debate performance

By NewsHound | Fri 16th April 2010 - 9:50 pm

Go on, try to guess what LDV Co-Editor Stephen Tall thought of Nick Clegg’s performance in the televised Prime Ministerial debate yesterday…

Even if you can guess the answer, Stephen’s piece on Comment is Free is well worth a read for the analysis it gives of why the debate went the way it did:

At least in part, it’s the practice that the Lib Dem leader has put in. I don’t mean the intensive “debate camp” cramming all three leaders have undertaken in recent weeks, but rather the scores of town hall meetings he’s been holding up and down the country since

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NewsHound

LibLink: Mark Pack – TV leaders’ debates: the dos and don’ts

By NewsHound | Thu 15th April 2010 - 7:15 pm

Over at the Total Politics website, LDV Co-Editor Mark Pack has penned an open letter to the party leaders ahead of tonight’s televised debate. Mark offers six pieces of advice, ranging from the obvious (or you’d think they’d be obvious), such as “Behave” to the more oblique, “Be ready for the worms”. Here’s an excerpt:

“Drunkard”, “useful idiot” and “dickheads” – all terms from one of the 2006 Italian debates between Prodi and Berlusconi – are best avoided, as is this quote from a 2004 Czech debate: “You’re lying as you always have. That’s you all over – a liar from

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NewsHound

LibLink: Campaign diary (April) – Jamie Saddler in Wirral South

By NewsHound | Tue 13th April 2010 - 4:40 pm

For the last couple of months, the Voice has been linking to the online campaign diary by Jamie Saddler, the 23 year-old Lib Dem candidate for Wirral South. His diary has been commissioned by Catch21, an organisation trying to get more young people interested in politics.

The latest instalment has just gone live – here’s an excerpt, as we catch up with Jamie in the midst of campaigning:

There are two things making the difference on the doorstep for me though – honesty and fairness. If there’s one thing the voters out there want it is for politicians to be

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NewsHound

LibLink: Mark Pack on ‘Constraints on election practices’

By NewsHound | Mon 12th April 2010 - 6:15 pm

When the Scotsman decided to write an article on election law – more specifically, the definitions and the constraints on what a political party and each candidate may do as set out in two much-amended pieces of legislation, the Representation of the Peoples Act 1983 and the Political Parties and Elections Act 2000 – they knew who to ask: LDV’s Co-Editor Mark Pack, the inspiration for LDV’s sister site the Election Law Channel. Here’s an excerpt, focusing on spending limits:

Mark Pack of Mandate Communications, and formerly of the Liberal Democrats, says the major difference is that TV

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NewsHound

LibLink: Mark Pack – It ain’t just that swing

By NewsHound | Sun 11th April 2010 - 4:50 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, LDV Co-Editor Mark Pack explains why ‘uniform national swing’ probably won’t help to predict the election result. Here’s an excerpt:

… UNS predictions based on the correct vote shares are far from perfect. In the last three general elections, UNS predicted the Conservatives would get 42 seats more than they did (1997), 15 more (2001) and 13 less (2005). For Labour UNS predicted 23 too few (1997), 10 too few (2001) and 14 too many (2005). For the Liberal Democrats it was 18 too few (1997), 5 too few (2001) and spot on

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NewsHound

LibLink: Stephen Tall – I’m not seduced by Adonis

By NewsHound | Sat 10th April 2010 - 7:20 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, LDV Co-Editor Stephen Tall has a pop at Labour’s Lord Adonis for begging for Lib Dem votes, aguing that left-liberal voters have been let down by both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – so we’re scarcely inclined to prop them up now. Here’s an excerpt:

There is a respectable argument for tactical voting, given our clunking electoral system. And if Lord Adonis really wants to pursue his “don’t let the Tories in” scare tactic to its logical conclusion, it’s very clear what progressives should do in Lib Dem-Tory marginals: vote Lib Dem. And

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NewsHound

LibLink: Craig Murray – British democracy: no better than Uzbekistan’s

By NewsHound | Fri 9th April 2010 - 6:30 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free, blogging Lib Dem and former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray argues that – with postal ballot-rigging, partisan officials, censorship of candidates, etc – no independent observer could call our elections free and fair. Here’s an excerpt:

In my diplomatic career, I spent a great deal of time assessing the democratic merit of elections in various countries abroad. That gives me a peculiar perspective in looking at elections in the UK, and wondering what a foreign observer would make of them. I can do this also with the insight of having twice run

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NewsHound

LibLink: Chris Rennard – It’s Lib Dems v more of the same

By NewsHound | Fri 9th April 2010 - 1:45 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, former Lib Dem chief exective, Lord (Chris) Rennard – not masterminding the party’s campaign for the first time in the modern party’s existence – has an article analysing the Lib Dems’ poition on the key election themes of tax, trust and reform. Here’s an excerpt:

It’s often said that there are really only two political messages in any election. Opposition parties say “it is time for a change”, while governing parties say: “Don’t let the others wreck it.” Liberal Democrat strategy in the first week has aimed to bracket Labour and the Conservatives

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LibLink: Evan Harris – Here comes the Lib Dem science

By NewsHound | Fri 9th April 2010 - 7:45 am

Over at TheEngineer.co.uk, Lib Dem science spokesman Evan Harris – the party’s star Twitterer – sets out the party’s policy on all things scientific. Here’s an excerpt:

We have long-argued that the UK has become over-reliant on the financial services as a foundation for growth; that a knowledge-intensive economy is not only more reliable, but also more rewarding and a better strategic base in the long-term. It is the scientist and the engineer who will ultimately develop and build the supply of clean energy we will need, the artificial organisms key to future biotech, or the robotics crucial to our

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LibLink: James Graham – Digital economy bill exposes broken system #DEbill

By NewsHound | Thu 8th April 2010 - 7:50 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, Lib Dem blogger James Graham argues that it was the UK’s broken Parliament – an antiquated Lords, a whipped Commons – which got us into the legislative mess of Labour’s Digital Economy Bill. The only way to fix it, says James, is to vote for a new politics. Here’s an excerpt:

The real lesson from this experience is that we need a more representative and responsive political system. Digital rights will always be one of those Cinderella issues while the voting system focuses politicians’ attention solely on a handful of swing voters in

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NewsHound

LibLink: Stephen Tall – Where’s George Osborne? I’m curious

By NewsHound | Thu 8th April 2010 - 7:50 am

Over at the Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, LDV Co-Editor Stephen Tall poses the question, Where’s George?, and suggests the Tories have shunted the unpopular shadow chancellor into the sidings. Here’s an excerpt:

As the three major parties launched their respective campaigns yesterday, the omnipresent St Vince appeared to have been welded to Nick Clegg’s side, a perpetual reminder of the Lib Dems’ twin leadership ticket. Meanwhile, Gordon Brown surrounded himself with his entire cabinet, including Darling. … And where was George? Well, according to my spies, he was sighted at Luton airport, accompanied by one reporter.

You can read Stephen’s …

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NewsHound

LibLink: Simon Hughes – The Lib Dems can keep the lights on

By NewsHound | Wed 7th April 2010 - 8:35 pm

Over at the New Statesman, Simon Hughes, the Lib Dems’ shadow secretary of state for energy and climate change, mounts a passionate defence of the party’s call for an independent inquiry into nuclear power – a call which led pro-nuclear environmental campaigner Mark Lynas to far-fetchedly claim the lights could go out in the event of a hung parliament.

First, Simon points out the need for an independent inquiry into the “justification” for nuclear power:

“Justification” is the process of assessment of the health effects of nuclear power and is a legal requirement before any new nuclear plant can operate in

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NewsHound

LibLink: Mark Pack – Five tips to make sense of the polls

By NewsHound | Wed 7th April 2010 - 6:40 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment is Free website, Lib Dem Voice Co-Editor Mark Pack has some wise words of advice for those who are going to spend the next four weeks poll-watching obsessively: track trends over time, and beware random fluctuations that ‘plunge’, ‘soar’ or ‘collapse’ in a headline. Here’s rule number one:

Rule one: carrying out an opinion poll is like flipping a coin. Flip a coin 10 times. Then do it another 10 times. And again. Chances are the number of heads each time will vary. But that doesn’t mean someone’s swapped the coin for a loaded one in

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LibLink: Ken MacDonald – “Freedom’s place in the fight against terrorism”

By NewsHound | Tue 6th April 2010 - 10:51 pm

OurKingdom is running the chapter in Why Vote Liberal Democrat by Ken Macdonalrd (former Director of Public Prosecutions) on liberty and terrorism:

Britain is a country with a long and proud history of promoting civil liberties. This is a tradition we should be determined to defend. But in recent years the state’s regard for these long-held values has diminished. Tony Blair once memorably described them as ‘belonging to another age’. They do not. They belong to each and every one of us, right now.

You can read the full piece over on the OurKingdom site and read a review of …

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LibLink: Danny Alexander on the party’s tax policies

By NewsHound | Mon 29th March 2010 - 7:28 pm

A while back, Left Foot Forward ran a piece attacking the party’s tax policies for not being progressive. That results in many responses around the place defending the party’s policy and today Left Foot Forward runs a piece from Danny Alexander defending the party’s policy:

As the person responsible for drafting the Liberal Democrat manifesto I wanted to respond to the report on our proposal to raise the income tax threshold to £10,000 – paid for by closing loopholes that unfairly benefit the best off, a new mansion tax, a crack down on tax avoidance and

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LibLink: Steve Webb – Indy readers ask the questions

By NewsHound | Mon 29th March 2010 - 5:45 pm

Over at The Independent, Lib Dem spokesman on Work and Pensions Steve Webb answers questions from the paper’s readers, such as ‘Aren’t you having it both ways on the deficit?’ and ‘Isn’t Clegg really a Tory?’ Here are 3 of the Q&As …

Why haven’t British politicians learned the lesson of welfare reform in Wisconsin? Cut benefits, create jobs, and end a dependency culture. Christopher Rope, Ipswich

There are plenty of people who receive benefits through no fault of their own, so how is cutting benefits across the board morally defensible? The phrase “dependency culture” is insulting to those who have poor health or family responsibilities or other perfectly good reasons for relying on what I still think of “social security”, many of whom would love to be able to get out and work. Wisconsin-style measures cut the “welfare rolls” but what happens to those people and their children then?

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LibLink: Steve Webb – There has been no rightward shift by the Liberal Democrats

By NewsHound | Thu 25th March 2010 - 6:19 pm

At Comment is Free today, Steve Webb MP reiterates the Liberal Democrats’ focus on redistributive policies and fairness.

He’s replying to Tim Horton’s suggestion that the Liberal Democrats have seen a “rightward shift” under Nick Clegg, at the expense of the party’s progressive credentials.

Webb responds with the £10,000 tax allowance, smarter public spending (including introducing the pupil premium and scrapping ID cards) and the Lib Dems’ fairness in politics agenda:

We have argued for an effective cap on political donations, so that no political party in Britain can be bought by sectional interests: the two old parties have, not surprisingly,

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LibLink: Simon Hughes: “Like the banks, new nuclear is too big to fail”

By NewsHound | Mon 22nd March 2010 - 5:25 pm

At Comment is Free today, Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat shadow secretary of state for energy and climate change) challenges the Tories over their “incoherent” new energy policy and calls for greater investment in renewable energy:

Nuclear power has always required huge amounts of public money and David Cameron’s signal that the Tories are ready to turn on the taps of taxpayer support risks billions which we simply can’t afford. Both Labour and the Tories claim that they will not provide any public subsidy, but both know that this cannot be true when the nuclear industry that has never been

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LibLink: Could Nick Clegg be next Imperial Commander?

By NewsHound | Sat 20th March 2010 - 10:45 am

The Guardian leader column notes that yesterday’s Cheltenham Gold Cup, billed as a two horse race, was won by a promising outsider when the two favourites both faltered; and wonders if the same might happen on May 6th.

Imperial Commander was always a true, in-form, thoroughbred contender…Can Nick Clegg be the two-legged equivalent of Imperial Commander? In a good year anything is possible – even under first past the post.

Posted in General Election and LibLink | Tagged | 2 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Simon Hughes – Being a constituency MP

By NewsHound | Wed 17th March 2010 - 8:45 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, Simon Hughes – Lib Dem MP for North Southwark and Bermondsey since 1983 – writes about his experiences as a constituency member of Parliament, and how a good and effective democracy is under-pinned by approachable MPs who deliver top-quality personal responses.

(Peter Black recently blogged a letter in the Guardian from someone whose train journey was disrupted by Simon’s assiduous work ethic).

Here’s an excerpt:

It is a seven-day, 80-hour a week job being a constituency MP. Every day by phone, letter, email or simply being stopped in the street, people ask for

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NewsHound

LibLink: leading Roger Williams to horticuture, and making us think

By NewsHound | Wed 17th March 2010 - 11:45 am

Roger Williams, Lib Dem shadow secretary of state for Food and Rural Affairs, is the subject of an interview in the Voice’s favourite read, Horticulture Week. He gives his views on Defra, the party’s call for a supermarket ombudsman, soft landscaping and school visits to rural industries. Here’s an excerpt:

An issue on which the Lib Dems have long been vocal is the creation of a supermarkets ombudsman, as Williams is keen to point out. He explains: “The Liberal Democrats have led the call for an ombudsman. The way in which horticultural producers and top fruit producers have been treated by

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LibLink: Campaign diary (March) – Jamie Saddler in Wirral South

By NewsHound | Tue 16th March 2010 - 5:25 pm

Last month, the Voice linked to the first part of a campaign diary by Jamie Saddler, the 23 year-old Lib Dem candidate for Wirral South, which has been commissioned by Catch21, an organisation trying to get more young people interested in politics.

The latest instalment has just gone online – here’s an excerpt:

Although it got somewhat lost last week in the fanfare of conference, and the continued media frenzy around hypothetical hung parliaments, the Lib Dems launched a manifesto for young people. Our central proposal is to introduce a guarantee that young people will be back into education, employment

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Michael Moore live online at the Guardian at 11am

By NewsHound | Tue 16th March 2010 - 10:22 am

Over at The Guardian website, Michael Moore, Lib Dem spokesman on international development, will be live online and answering readers’ questions about aid and development from 11am today, Tuesday. Here’s how it’s being trailed:

Last year, the Liberal Democrats set out their thoughts on international development in a policy paper, which outlined support for the aid target of 0.7% of GDP, a call for renewed efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals and an acknowledgement that aid sometimes fails and that perhaps financial aid is not the most effective way of delivering support.

At 11am (GMT) on Tuesday, 16 March, the Lib

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LibLink: David Laws – Five things I have learned

By NewsHound | Mon 15th March 2010 - 7:25 pm

Over at the BBC News website, Lib Dem shadow schools spokesman David Laws “reveals the most important things he has learned in his life.” Here’s one of them …

5. Sometimes it is easier to achieve your goals in a roundabout way than by a full-frontal assault.

When I was in the City you were taught to be very blunt, straight forward and direct. There was a premium on clarity of thought and expression, whereas sometimes in politics to achieve your goals or to persuade other people, you need to be less direct than you might otherwise want to be.

It’s probably

…

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