Author Archives: Paul Walter

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PMQs: Wouldn’t you also crack under this sort of pressure?

By Paul Walter | Fri 25th May 2012 - 10:57 am

Here are some quotes from Ed Balls MP from past Prime Minister’s Questions:

No No No No No No No No No No

and

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

and

Down Down Down Down Down Down Down Down Down

and

Up Up Up Up Up Up Up Up Up Up

All this mono-syllabic heckling has gone on amidst a variety of facial squirms and gurns and even the exhibition of a wide portfolio of hand signals which have had puzzled observers searching umpiring manuals. This …

Posted in PMQs | Tagged david cameron and ed balls | 22 Comments

DPMQs: De facto but not de jure Fruit Ninja

By Paul Walter | Wed 23rd May 2012 - 11:53 am

MPs are always queuing up in droves to ask a question of the Deputy Prime Minister. He is what the Speaker describes as “box office”.

The subjects at this monthly session can, however, be a bit repetitive. House of Lords reform, electoral registration and lobbying all tend to pop up every time.

Helen Grant (Con) was anxious to get the Royal Sucession changes on the statute books pdq. But Nick Clegg reassured her that, should the Duchess of Cambridge undergo successful confinement resulting in a female happy event, …

Posted in PMQs | Tagged constitutional reform, house of lords, lords reform and nick clegg | Leave a comment

In praise of Councillor Neil Hughes – 56 Up

By Paul Walter | Tue 15th May 2012 - 2:47 pm

If you missed it, it is worth watching the first episode of 56 Up on ITV Player. Aired last night, it is the latest in Michael Apted’s Seven Up series, which filmed a group of seven year olds in 1964 and has since caught up with them every seven years.

One of the group is Liberal Democrat Councillor Neil Hughes, who represents Shap ward on Eden District Council in Cumbria. Neil was previously one of our councillors in Hackney and is also a lay preacher. As you can see from last night’s film, the Seven Up series has …

Posted in News | Tagged Cumbria and Eden District Council | 20 Comments

French and Greek election results open thread

By Paul Walter | Mon 7th May 2012 - 7:54 am

Francois Hollande has been elected French President, after promising to work for more growth and to renegotiate the EU fiscal compact.

Initial results from the Greek parliamentary elections suggest a shake-up, with the left-wing Syriza party and a neo-Nazi party gaining ground at the expense of the two old coalition parties, New Democracy and Pasok. There is talk of the new government (when and if it emerges to be sworn in by the men in beards) seeking to “amend” the …

Posted in Europe / International | Tagged french presidential election and greece | 15 Comments

PMQs: Miliband hits barn door – twice

By Paul Walter | Fri 27th April 2012 - 1:54 pm

Britain back in recession, embarrassing emails about government links to Murdoch. These are gifts to the opposition. The most open of open goals at this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions.

I liked Miliband’s opening question:

Today we had the catastrophic news that Britain is back in recession. I am sure that the Prime Minister has spent the past 24 hours thinking of an excuse as to why it is nothing to do with him, so what is his excuse

…

Posted in PMQs | Tagged Angela Smith, david amess, david cameron, ed miliband, jeremy hunt, news international, recession and stephen lloyd | 31 Comments

Politicians’ fathers and spouses – fair game?

By Paul Walter | Mon 23rd April 2012 - 1:23 pm

There’s always a debate as to the extent that politicians’ family should be fair game for media coverage. There seems to be a general consensus that their children should be off-limits. Mind you, that didn’t stop Caroline Spelman’s 17-year-old son being pitched into the national limelight recently. (However, in that case there appear to be justifiable reasons for coverage).

Over the last week, we have seen a number of stories concerning UK politicians’ fathers and wives (or, more correctly, wife).

The …

Posted in News | Tagged caroline spelman, david cameron, george osborne, miriam gonzalez durantez and nick clegg | 18 Comments

PMQs: It’s déjà vu all over again

By Paul Walter | Fri 20th April 2012 - 12:05 pm

Andrew Selous MP (Conservative) got up at Prime Minister’s Questions this week and said this:

What does he think about Ken Livingstone, who said that: “I get loads of money, all from different sources, and I give it to an accountant and they manage it”? Is that modern socialism for you?

A superb question. But one could be forgiven for being reminded of Yogi Berra’s remark:

Posted in PMQs | Tagged andrew cunningham, andrew selous, budget 2012, david cameron, ed miliband, ian murray, naomi long and stephen gilbert | 2 Comments

Opinion: If rich philanthropists don’t like the idea of a tax exemption limit, they know what they can do

By Paul Walter | Mon 16th April 2012 - 1:54 pm

It is as if George Osborne has got a political death wish. First, there was the botched pensioners’ tax announcement. Then, there was the hilarious pasty tax. Now, the charitable donations tax ememption limit idea is attracting great opprobrium.

But hang on a minute.

There is something in that tax exemption threshold idea.

It is quite wrong that tax exemption is given for donations to “charities” beyond the remit of the Charities Commission. There is rather vague talk of unspecified East European “charities” being used. …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged charity | 18 Comments

Opinion: In praise of French democracy

By Paul Walter | Wed 11th April 2012 - 12:24 pm

On board Eurostar, homeward bound after a Parisian Easter break, I am, as always, full of praise and affection for La France.

In the area where we were staying, activity on behalf of the Socialist candidate, for the forthcoming Presidential election, was omni-present. I collected a sheaf of leaflets and lettters politely profferred in markets on his behalf. I have little knowledge of French politics, but I can safely say that the 12th arrondissement of Paris is securely in the bag for François Hollande.

Yesterday’s …

Posted in Europe / International | Tagged french elections | 2 Comments

“Reports about plans to snoop on your emails are complete nonsense” – Lynne Featherstone writes to Lib Dem members

By Paul Walter | Mon 2nd April 2012 - 7:27 pm

Lib Dem members received this email from Lynne Featherstone at around 5 o’clock this afternoon:

I wanted to write to reassure you that the current reports in the media about Government plans to snoop on your emails are complete nonsense.

Liberal Democrats have always been, and will continue to be, opposed to a centralised database that allows government to monitor your internet activity at will.

That is not going to happen under these proposals and never will happen in a government that includes me and the Liberal

…

Posted in News | Tagged interception modernisation programme and lynne featherstone | 39 Comments

LibLink: Tim Leunig – ‘Granny tax’ does not go far enough

By Paul Walter | Fri 23rd March 2012 - 3:24 pm

Writing in the Financial Times (registration needed), Tim Leunig argues that pensioners have had an easy recession, with good pension increases and extras such as bus passes, free TV licences and winter fuel allowances.

The freezing of the tax allowance cuts a trivial 0.25% off pensioner incomes, Tim says, but, even then, the Institute of Fiscal Studies says that pensioners are better off, while working age people have suffered the worst of the government’s …

Posted in News | 34 Comments

IFS: Reasonable to say rich will pay the Treasury more as a result of the Budget

By Paul Walter | Fri 23rd March 2012 - 1:54 pm

Speaking on Radio Four’s PM programme yesterday, Carl Emmerson, Deputy Director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies said:

The Treasury estimates that it will lose £100million from cutting the top rate of income tax from 50 to 45 pence. That is not an unreasonable central estimate but there is a huge uncertainty around that. It also thinks it will raise about £500 million or so from the increases in stamp duty. Again, not an unreasonable estimate but it still has a

…

Posted in News | Tagged the rich | 14 Comments

IFS: Pensioners have been sheltered from the brunt of the deficit changes

By Paul Walter | Fri 23rd March 2012 - 9:24 am

Speaking on Radio Four’s PM programme yesterday, Carl Emmerson, Deputy Director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies said:

If you look just at yesterday’s announcements, it is clear that pensioners as a group will lose from yesterday’s announcements while other groups will win from what the Chancellor announced…But if you step back and say well actually let’s look at the overall plan to get the deficit down…overall pensioners as a group are suffering less on average than other groups. They’ve been sheltered from the

…

Posted in News | Tagged pensioners | 15 Comments

DPMQs: Trading attacks, squalidity and the long grass commission

By Paul Walter | Thu 22nd March 2012 - 11:54 am

Another Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions and another set of traded attacks. Harriet Harman has a go about the 50p tax rate and tax credit cuts. Nick Clegg lobs back this salvo:

Next month, this Government will take more than 1 million people on low pay out of paying income tax altogether. Next month, we will deliver the largest cash increase in the state pension ever. There will be no more of Labour’s 75p pension insults. Next month, thousands of children from disadvantaged backgrounds will receive an uplift

…

Posted in Parliament | Tagged constitutional reform, house of lords, lords reform and nick clegg | 4 Comments

Road sell-off plan unveiled

By Paul Walter | Mon 19th March 2012 - 7:25 am

From today’s Guardian front page:

David Cameron will clear the way for a multibillion-pound semi-privatisation of trunk roads and motorways as he announces plans to allow sovereign wealth funds from countries such as China to lease roads in England.

Just 48 hours before the budget, the prime minister will give a speech calling for radical action to improve Britain’s infrastructure, which is falling behind those of key competitors in Europe.

In his most eye-catching proposal, Cameron will announce that the Treasury and Department for Transport are to carry out a feasibility study looking at using private-sector funds to improve and maintain trunk

…

Posted in News | Tagged Road transport | 9 Comments

LibLink: Lynne Featherstone – ‘Church stuck in dark ages’

By Paul Walter | Mon 12th March 2012 - 4:54 pm

In an interview in yesterday’s Sunday Times (£), Lynne Featherstone said plans for same-sex marriages are a ‘gentle measure’ but she will not bear intolerance.

Pink News reports the interview under the heading “UK Equality Minister: Church’s opposition to same sex marriage is ‘Dark Age’ homophobia”:

Lynne Featherstone, the Liberal Democrat minister for equality has said that the language the Church of England and the Catholic Church has used is homophobic and that the views that the leaders are expressing belong in the Dark Ages.

Mrs Featherstone told the Sunday Times: “This is about love and commitment and things that

…

Posted in LibLink | Tagged lynne featherstone and same sex marriage | 9 Comments

LibLink: Simon Hughes – The rich must be made to pay their share

By Paul Walter | Mon 12th March 2012 - 3:24 pm

In the Independent on Sunday, Simon Hughes writes:

Our economy will never recover if we continue to allow a privileged few to squirrel away increasing amounts of money into tax havens. But allowing people to take home more of what they earn both alleviates the squeeze on households and can boost spending where it is needed – on the high street, and in the community – creating demand and jobs.

We have already made great progress on making the tax system fairer. We have raised the rate of capital gains tax to 28 per cent, ending the scandal whereby people paid

…

Posted in LibLink | Tagged economy and tax | 4 Comments

PMQs: Lest we forget

By Paul Walter | Fri 9th March 2012 - 11:24 am

A different Prime Minister’s Questions review this week. Often, the Prime Minister prefaces his first answer with a tribute to fallen service personnel. I have mentioned these tributes a few times in the course of these write-ups over the last (nearly) two years.

It seems appropriate to devote the whole of this week’s review solely to those who have died fighting for us, as we pass the milestone of 400 troops killed in Afghanistan with a particularly bloody incident.

Whatever our views of the right or the wrongs of our involvements overseas, I think most people agree that our service personnel do …

Posted in PMQs | Tagged afghanistan | 1 Comment

Happy Saint Piran’s Day!

By Paul Walter | Mon 5th March 2012 - 7:54 am

A very happy St Piran’s Day to all our Cornish readers!

The website of the St Piran Trust says:

Many people have claimed many things but nothing is sure, we can only ponder on who was St Piran, where he came from, how he arrived on our shores. One thing is sure. St Piran lives on in the hearts and minds of the Cornish people here in Cornwall and around the world.

Legend: The heathen Irish tied him to a mill-stone, rolled it

…

Posted in News | Tagged cornwall | 1 Comment

LibLink: Chris Rennard – David Cameron wants nothing less than Tory hegemony

By Paul Walter | Mon 27th February 2012 - 12:54 pm

On the Guardian’s Comment is Free, Chris Rennard warns that Libdems should beware becoming part of a grand plan to secure permanent Conservative domination:

Thirteen years of opposition were especially painful for those Tories who formed their political opinions in the years when Margaret Thatcher appeared to reign supreme. Opposition from 1997 was humiliating and served to increase the fiercely competitive instincts of the Cameron circle. Time in opposition helped them to plan to try and ensure that, if Labour let them win back power, they would never lose again – even with historically low levels of support for the

…

Posted in LibLink | Tagged conservative party and liberal democrats | 9 Comments

Video: The first rule of politics is broken in the most spectacular fashion

By Paul Walter | Mon 27th February 2012 - 8:54 am

That is “the first rule of politics” in the sense of the “first rule of comedy, Spike” catchphrase in the late lamented David Croft’s Hi de Hi.

In this case, the rule I am thinking of is:

Always book a venue slightly too small for your expected audience. That way the room/hall will seem full and vibrant.

LibDems love to repeat the story of the agent who put out one chair for a meeting. Three people arrived. The agent brought in two extra chairs from the next room, then released a statement to the press about the meeting saying:

Extra chairs had to be brought in.

It says something about the cack-handedness of Mitt Romney’s US Republican nomination campaign that he can obviously learn a thing or two from the humblest agent.

The Democrat National Committee have put together this video of a rather disastrous Mitt Romney “rally” in Detroit, Michigan.

It’s worth watching this video all the way through for the priceless comment from an incredulous political pundit at the end.

Posted in YouTube | Tagged Mitt Romney and usa | Leave a comment

Opinion: Whoa! Romney isn’t meant to do this badly

By Paul Walter | Mon 20th February 2012 - 7:36 pm

I am getting worried.

A few weeks ago I was sure that Mitt Romney would win the US Republican Presidential nomination. He’d be nicely battered and bruised and the Democrats would have a fat file of YouTube and news clips to use against him (“I like firing people“/”I am not concerned about the very poor“/”Let Detroit go bankrupt” etc). But he would win.

However, it is now becoming possible that he might not win the nomination. Oh dear. Rick Santorum has been ahead in a string of national polls and is fourish points ahead in Michigan. Yes, Michigan, where …

Posted in LDVUSA | Tagged Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum | 9 Comments

LibLink: Nick Clegg – Our example as well as diplomacy will make the world safer

By Paul Walter | Mon 20th February 2012 - 1:26 pm

Nick Clegg writes in the Independent today on international standards in the arms trade:

As always with international norms, the first, crucial step is laying global ground rules that can be built on over time. What is needed is leadership. The UK has spearheaded this agenda within the UN, for which former Foreign Secretary David Miliband deserves considerable credit. The baton has now passed to the coalition and we understand that credibility abroad rests on leading by example at home. Ours is one of the most rigorous regulatory regimes in the world, but there’s always room to do better. We

…

Posted in LibLink | Tagged arms trade | 2 Comments

US Presidential election – hold onto your hats!

By Paul Walter | Tue 7th February 2012 - 3:54 pm

The 2012 US Presidential race is certainly going to be interesting. That’s for sure. There is no end of permutations, twists and turns ahead which will make very entertaining viewing for us over this side of the pond.

Every time you make a statement about the election, there are caveats and “but ifs” which follow.

It’s tempting to say that Obama is sunk because of the US economy. However, there are strong signs now of a solid recovery. Last week’s job news was very positive and polls are showing a thawing of anti-Obama feeling.

You could also say that…

Posted in News | Tagged barack obama, Mitt Romney and usa | 2 Comments

LibLink: Ashdown – This 11-year exercise in self-delusion must end

By Paul Walter | Mon 6th February 2012 - 10:24 am

Paddy Ashdown has an opinion piece on Afghanistan in The Times today (£) in which he says:

We have repeatedly deluded ourselves about “successes” that never existed and thus took so long recognising that a victor’s peace was beyond our reach that we wasted the best opportunities for a negotiated one. We failed to understand that in these wars it is politics, not weapons, that counts most. Even if you win on the battlefield, you lose if you lose politically; which we have, painfully

Posted in LibLink | Tagged afghanistan | 1 Comment

Farron on Davey: An outstanding environmentalist

By Paul Walter | Mon 6th February 2012 - 8:54 am

In case you missed it, Tim Farron’s interview on yesterday’s Andrew Marr Show is here in full on BBC iPlayer (starting at 35:43) or here in a shorter clip.

Standing, well wrapped up, in snowy Cumbria, Tim is in typically robust form. He pays tribute to Chris Huhne and says he “wants and expects” him to be back in government soon. He says that the LibDems are concentrating on being “collegiate not destructive” in coalition by ‘behaving like grown-ups’. He pays warm tribute to Ed Davey’s environmentalist credentials and covers a wide range of policy issues.

…

Posted in News | Tagged chris huhne and tim farron | 5 Comments

Influence of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party drops off

By Paul Walter | Thu 2nd February 2012 - 2:54 pm

In the New York Times, Michael D Shear reports that the influence of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party has waned during the US Republican Presidential primaries:

In October, Sarah Palin announced that she would not run for president in 2012, ending the media frenzy around her potential candidacy even as she vowed to remain politically active and influential.

“I will continue driving the discussion for freedom and free markets,” she wrote in an e-mail to her supporters.

Just over three months later her attempts to wield influence in the presidential campaign the way she did during the 2010 midterm elections have

…

Posted in News | Tagged usa | Leave a comment

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Author Archives: Paul Walter

PMQs: Wouldn’t you also crack under this sort of pressure?

DPMQs: De facto but not de jure Fruit Ninja

In praise of Councillor Neil Hughes – 56 Up

French and Greek election results open thread

PMQs: Miliband hits barn door – twice

Politicians’ fathers and spouses – fair game?

PMQs: It’s déjà vu all over again

Opinion: If rich philanthropists don’t like the idea of a tax exemption limit, they know what they can do

Opinion: In praise of French democracy

“Reports about plans to snoop on your emails are complete nonsense” – Lynne Featherstone writes to Lib Dem members

LibLink: Tim Leunig – ‘Granny tax’ does not go far enough

IFS: Reasonable to say rich will pay the Treasury more as a result of the Budget

IFS: Pensioners have been sheltered from the brunt of the deficit changes

DPMQs: Trading attacks, squalidity and the long grass commission

Road sell-off plan unveiled

LibLink: Lynne Featherstone – ‘Church stuck in dark ages’

LibLink: Simon Hughes – The rich must be made to pay their share

PMQs: Lest we forget

Happy Saint Piran’s Day!

LibLink: Chris Rennard – David Cameron wants nothing less than Tory hegemony

Video: The first rule of politics is broken in the most spectacular fashion

Opinion: Whoa! Romney isn’t meant to do this badly

LibLink: Nick Clegg – Our example as well as diplomacy will make the world safer

US Presidential election – hold onto your hats!

LibLink: Ashdown – This 11-year exercise in self-delusion must end

Farron on Davey: An outstanding environmentalist

Influence of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party drops off

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Josh Babarinde writes…The Lib Dem Summer of Strategy

Alison Suttie writes: Thank you to our volunteers

What’s going on with party strategy?

A strange but welcome feeling

Author Archives: Paul Walter

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