Author Archives: Paul Walter

Paul Walter

John Hayes on that “very public spat” with Ed Davey

By Paul Walter | Mon 14th January 2013 - 1:23 pm

John Hayes - Some rights reserved by bisgovukThere’s an interesting interview with Conservative minister John Hayes in the latest edition of House magazine. We learn that he is the only Tory minister who has worked for two Liberal Democrat Secretaries of State. “He points out he has extensive links to HM Treasury.” And there is this passage about his relationship with his “boss”, Ed Davey:

Of course it was Hayes’ shift to the Energy brief in the September reshuffle – with a reported instruction from the PM to ‘deliver a win for our people on windfarms’ – that shot him to prominence for a wider audience. Hayes didn’t

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Paul Walter

Coalition review – fine words, but any parsnips buttered?

By Paul Walter | Mon 7th January 2013 - 3:23 pm

clegg cameron rose gardenDavid Cameron and Nick Clegg have just presented their mid-term coalition review. You can read the full document here. As a taster, here are the ending words of the foreword:

Today, at the half-way point in this Parliament, we are taking stock of the progress we have made in implementing the Coalition Agreement that we signed in May 2010. But we are also initiating a new set of reforms, building on those already under way, to secure

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Paul Walter

Confessing LDV team members named

By Paul Walter | Mon 7th January 2013 - 2:53 pm

Some rights reserved by Lori GreigOn Christmas Eve some of the Liberal Democrat Voice team made public some interesting “confessions”. At that stage it was a case of “no names, no pack drills”. Readers had a chance to guess which team member made which confession. (There were a few jokers in there to make it even more interesting).

Now we can reveal the identity of each penitent:

Confession #1

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Posted in Humour and News | Tagged | 2 Comments
Paul Walter

Duncan Hames is one to watch – Independent

By Paul Walter | Mon 7th January 2013 - 1:23 pm

Duncan Hames - Some rights reserved by Duncan HamesDuncan Hames has been picked out by the Independent as a political star of the future. John Rentoul feeds some “scientific criteria” into his machine to come up with a list of MPs to watch in the future. The criteria include performing well on TV, networking, administrative ability and ideological positioning.

Duncan comes out of the machine as the one Lib Dem pickee:

Duncan Hames, 35, who has been PPS to Nick Clegg

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Paul Walter

LibLink: Andrew De Freitas – rebel with a cause

By Paul Walter | Mon 7th January 2013 - 11:53 am

This is Grimsby has an in-depth article on veteran local councillor Andrew De Freitas:

A year after fleeing riots in his homeland, a young political activist from British Guiana arrived in Grimsby. In the first of a new series profiling our ward councillors, Local Government Reporter Simon Faulkner speaks to the Liberal Democrat Andrew De Freitas.

“I WAS always a bit of a rebel”, smiles Andrew De Freitas, recalling his childhood in the Caribbean colony of British Guiana.

“My father said ‘this boy when he grows up is going to be a lawyer’, because I was always prepared to argue on people’s

…

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Paul Walter

Opinion: Child benefit changes – get over it

By Paul Walter | Mon 7th January 2013 - 9:54 am

The participants of talk radio were seething this morning, as people complained that they will lose child benefit if they are earning over £50,000. There was one particular man on Radio Berkshire shouting at his phone about it.

I think we need to step back here. Child Benefit’s predecessor, Family Allowance was introduced in 1946. Part of the reason for this was to encourage or, at least, facilitate the repopulation of the country following the killing of the war. The government was particularly keen on people producing boys. My own family duly did their patriotic duty splendidly by producing seven …

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Paul Walter

Cameron and Clegg to renew vows

By Paul Walter | Mon 7th January 2013 - 8:53 am

clegg-cameron-love– That, courtesy of the FT, is perhaps the most florid of a batch of headlines this morning concerning a “relaunch”, or at least a “resomething” of the coalition.

The FT article starts:

David Cameron and Nick Clegg will today alarm some in their own parties with a whole-hearted renewal of their coalition vows, in a midterm relaunch that includes a new

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Paul Walter

Christmas confession: I am the photo fairy

By Paul Walter | Mon 24th December 2012 - 11:24 am

Due to getting a bit of a buzz from finding nice photos for this site, earlier this year I started adding images to articles (where the editorial team member who originally posted the article did not have the time or the inclination to add one). And so, I have been given the nickname “the photo fairy” as I occasionally scatter photos, like magic dust, around the site.

Many of our photos come from Flickr using the Creative Commons License where individuals or organisations have allowed their photos to be used in certain situations with attribution.

It seems appropriate at …

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Paul Walter

LibLink: Prateek Buch on Nick Clegg’s speech today

By Paul Walter | Mon 17th December 2012 - 7:30 pm

Double Clegg 2 - Some rights reserved by Liberal DemocratsOn Comment is Free, Social Liberal Forum director, Prateek Buch provides an interesting critique of Nick Clegg’s speech today:

At least Clegg recognises that Liberal Democrats have to stand up for what we truly believe in. The recent direction of travel on Leveson, drugs reform and snooping is welcome, and we await more robust promotion of party policy on things that really matter to most people – a fair, sustainable economy where living

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Paul Walter

Nick Clegg signals new distance from “fantasy world” Tories

By Paul Walter | Mon 17th December 2012 - 9:53 am

Nick Clegg in DublinThe Observer reports that Nick Clegg will today seek to put distance between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives. In a key passage of his speech today, Nick Clegg will say:

The Tory right dreams of a fantasy world where we can walk away from the EU but magically keep our economy strong; where we can pretend that the world hasn’t moved on and stand opposed to gay marriage; where we can refuse to accept the verdict of the British people and pretend the Conservatives won a majority of their own.

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Paul Walter

If Leveson is a slippery slope, I’m a teapot

By Paul Walter | Mon 3rd December 2012 - 9:53 am

It’s funny, but before two weeks ago, I can’t remember the last time I heard the phrases “slippery slope” or “crossing the Rubicon”. In the run up to, and immediately after, the publication of the Leveson report we have heard of little else. – That and “underpinning”, another phrase not otherwise in general use.

Hopefully, the weekend has allowed people to actually read some of Leveson’s report and we may now hear less of slopes slippery and rivers Rubicon.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 21 Comments
Paul Walter

LibLink: Vince Cable – Where is Africa’s share of the spoils?

By Paul Walter | Mon 26th November 2012 - 3:53 pm

In the Independent, Vince Cable complains that Africa sees little of the vast profits from its natural resources:

Each year, international oil, gas, forestry and mining companies make large payments to the governments of resource-rich developing countries, though their citizens see very little of it. Charities have estimated that in Africa this income is six times greater than the aid the continent receives. Where does all this money go?

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Paul Walter

LibLink: Lynne Featherstone on eliminating violence against women and girls

By Paul Walter | Mon 26th November 2012 - 12:53 pm

On the occasion of her first visit to Zambia and the UN Day for eliminating violence against women, Lynne Featherstone writes on Huffington Post:

Physical and sexual abuse of women is a global scourge, that transcends borders. From the UK, where one in four women will be the victim of domestic abuse in their lifetime to Zambia, where 47% of women have suffered gender-based violence. Much has been done to improve

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Paul Walter

Tribute to the contribution of David Rendel

By Paul Walter | Mon 19th November 2012 - 4:53 pm

The Newbury Weekly News very kindly published the following letter from me in a recent edition. I reproduce it here in case it is of interest to a wider readership:

Through your columns, I’d like to pay warm tribute to the extraordinary contribution to the Liberal Democrats and West Berkshire which David Rendel has made over an unprecedented 28 years as our local parliamentary candidate or MP (that, of course, includes time during the existence of our predecessor party).

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Paul Walter

Does Don Foster like his new government job?

By Paul Walter | Mon 12th November 2012 - 4:23 pm

The current edition of The House magazine features our very own Don Foster in full colour on its front page. There’s an interesting article on the legend that is “The Don”, but this little passage, about his job in government, caught my eye:

“One of the fantastic things I did for the first two-and-a-half years of this Government was to represent the Liberal Democrats at film premieres, at football matches, at rugby matches, at plays, at the BAFTA awards, and so on. It was hardly a big sacrifice to lose out first time round. I loved representing the

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Paul Walter

Can you believe in free speech and moderate comments?

By Paul Walter | Mon 12th November 2012 - 9:53 am

The Telegraph’s assistant comment editor, Tom Chivers, has written a thought-provoking article about moderating comments on web sites. In it he tackles the apparent mismatch between a website advocating free speech while disallowing some comments under its articles:

It’s a funny thing. You write a piece saying that the state shouldn’t outlaw rudeness and insults, and about one

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged | 8 Comments
Paul Walter

BBC: Let’s get this in proportion

By Paul Walter | Mon 12th November 2012 - 7:53 am


Michael Portillo was on ITV Daybreak this morning talking about a “disaster” and, even, a “catastrophe” at the BBC.

I think it’s time for us all to lie down in a darkened room for a few hours with some smelling salts.

Newsnight made a mistake. It seems to have occurred because the replacement management structure (pending the Jimmy Savile enquiry) was rather weak. This mistake was in a similar league to the newspapers hounding the entirely innocent Chris Jeffries in Bristol, for which I don’t remember any resignations. Making inferences …

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Paul Walter

Opinion: US Elections – I’m not one to gloat, but….

By Paul Walter | Fri 9th November 2012 - 4:10 pm

I am still musing on what a wonderful night it was on Tuesday into Wednesday. I stayed up all night until I finally threw in the towel at 6.45am. It was a bit tedious at first, but it got really exciting at around 3am.

Over the last few weeks, I have been a very regular visitor to FiveThirtyEight, the home of Nate Silver. So, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that the man’s forecasts have turned out to be right.

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Paul Walter

Four more years – thank you

By Paul Walter | Wed 7th November 2012 - 5:22 am

Thank you to everyone who joined in our live blog/tweet following the exciting results from across the Atlantic tonight. Many thanks to everyone who used the hashtag #LDVUSA to join in!

It was a great night – to see all the potential Romney paths to victory disintegrating one by one and a EV total of 332 looking on the cards for Obama!

Analysis and post-mortems can wait for another day. For now, it’s celebration time! WoooooHoooooo!

Posted in LDVUSA | Tagged and | 6 Comments
Paul Walter

#LDVUSA – Three nifty ways to help make sense of tonight’s election results

By Paul Walter | Tue 6th November 2012 - 1:53 pm

It can often be a mathematical nightmare trying to work out who’s winning as US Presidential Election night progresses. Sometimes, some poor souls even end up having to rely on David Dimbleby to explain what’s going on! Poor things!

Here are three nifty tools to help you make sense of what is happening tonight:

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Paul Walter

Clegg to hand 20 cities more economic powers

By Paul Walter | Mon 29th October 2012 - 5:23 pm

Nick Clegg is giving more economic powers to a new batch of cities and major towns.

– Devolving powers out of Whitehall in order to stimulate growth.

It is very difficult not to see this as A Very Good Thing.

The Independent takes up the story:

Up to 20 major towns and cities will today be offered extra

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Paul Walter

If Obama wins, this Republican ought, perhaps, to be top of his list of people to thank

By Paul Walter | Thu 25th October 2012 - 10:53 am

This is John Kasich, Republican Governor of the state of Ohio, USA.

It is possible to argue, credibly (albeit amid much debate), that if Barack Obama wins re-election on November 6th, the first person he ought to thank is John Kasich.

Polls suggest that, despite the hyperventilated efforts of the Romney campaign to generate some “big mo” after the Denver debate, Obama is still ahead in vital Ohio.

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Paul Walter

LibLink: Nick Clegg remembering the Holocaust is the greatest antidote to extremism

By Paul Walter | Mon 22nd October 2012 - 2:54 pm

In the Independent, Nick Clegg writes movingly of the need for constant reminders of the horrors of the Holcaust. This follows his recent visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau with students organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust:

The constant threats of racism, Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism still lurk every day. Anti-Semitism has been described as a light sleeper. Cemeteries are still vandalised, discredited conspiracy theories are spread over the internet, Jewish people

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged and | 25 Comments
Paul Walter

Unravelling the US election – or not, as the case may be…

By Paul Walter | Mon 22nd October 2012 - 1:23 pm

There are just 16 days to go until the US Presidential election. Liberal Democrat Voice will be live-blogging the election results as they come in on the night. Hopefully, the count won’t go on as long as it did in 2000, or we might be in for a very long live blog.

I should declare, up front, that I am inveterately

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Paul Walter

PMQs: The Chief Whip’s brain is missing*

By Paul Walter | Thu 18th October 2012 - 12:23 pm

*Conservative Chief Whip, that is.

Does Andrew Mitchell have some embarrassing photos of David Cameron? Or is there some disaster coming up, known only to the Prime Minister, for which he is conserving the Chief Whip for dumping overboard at an expedient moment as “cover”?

There has to be some reason that the PM preserves in post a man responsible for one of the longest public aftermaths ever for an intemperate outburst.

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Paul Walter

The Sun’s “Hero of the week” is a straw man

By Paul Walter | Mon 15th October 2012 - 9:23 am

The Guardian reports:

Nick Clegg has declined to back the campaign to ban page 3 girls from the Sun, on the grounds that the state should not dictate the content of newspapers. In an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live, the deputy prime minister said it would be “deeply illiberal” for the state to dictate what appears in newspapers…Clegg was asked by Shelagh Fogarty, the Radio 5 presenter, if he would support the page 3 ban during a live broadcast from Sheffield. “No, no, no,” he said. “I’ve got three little sons so I don’t have page 3

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Paul Walter

Romney campaign: Writing the “How not to” manual

By Paul Walter | Mon 1st October 2012 - 1:24 pm

The Mitt Romney campaign in the US has an interesting approach to some of the accepted campaigning golden rules:

Before televised debates, you lower expectations of your candidate

…That way when they do reasonably well, everyone is surprised and your campaign gets a bit of a lift. So what did Romney’s campaign do? Well for weeks we have been told that Romney is closeting himself away with advisers for long sessions to prepare

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Posted in Europe / International | Tagged , and | 2 Comments
Paul Walter

Conference Skype* speeches – a must have

By Paul Walter | Mon 1st October 2012 - 11:54 am

There is a vast opportunity staring the Liberal Democrats in the face: To be the first British political party to accommodate speeches via Skype at their conference.

There are all sorts of arguments for and against this. Would it stop people bothering to come to conference altogether and just participate from their living room? Would that kill conference?

But there are two massive reasons why it should be done very

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 15 Comments
Paul Walter

Opinion: Why I will withhold my standing ovation from Nick Clegg today

By Paul Walter | Wed 26th September 2012 - 1:24 pm

Today, for the first time at the numerous leader’s speeches I have attended, I intend to remain seated when Nick Clegg gets the standing ovation for his speech.

I won’t do it with any rancour or anger. I am a great fan of Nick Clegg (I just cannot support him as leader of our party anymore, as I have outlined ad nauseam elsewhere). I will be there, seated, smiling and clapping enthusiastically. But I am damned if I am going to stand.

My reasons for doing so are based on …

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Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Tagged and | 16 Comments
Paul Walter

Two priceless conference comedy moments (for about five people on the surface of Planet Earth)

By Paul Walter | Wed 26th September 2012 - 9:24 am

Colin Rosenstiel is a Lib Dem legend, star of constitutional minutiae and progenitor of bicycling anecdotes.

At 9am yesterday, there was a constitutional amendments debate. (Yes – riveting. A few minutes before it was due to start, the audience would have been out-numbered by those six Liberal MPs who could get into a taxi in 1970. The debate started with the words, “Good morning, fellow insomniacs!”)

At the end, Colin stood up and raised a point of order – the Lib Dem equivalent of firing a tactical nuclear weapon. Something about a separate vote. The comedy moment was the withering, over-the-top-of-the-glasses dismissal …

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