Author Archives: Peter Facey

Peter Facey

The Independent View: House of Lords Reform – The Way Forward

By Peter Facey | Tue 10th July 2012 - 11:15 am

It’s fair to say that last night’s debate on the House of Lords Reform Bill will not go down in history as the Common’s finest moment.  There was more cant on display than the entire run of Play Away.  Many of the speeches appeared to be against a different bill entirely and you could be forgiven for thinking the bill bore no resemblance to the one which Labour had proposed in its own White Paper in 2008 (in fact, the proposals are remarkably similar).

For all that, however, it is fair to say the Lib Dems have not exactly covered …

Continue reading »
Posted in The Independent View | Tagged | 8 Comments
Peter Facey

The Independent View: Lib Dem peers kill local referendums

By Peter Facey | Tue 18th October 2011 - 9:25 am

On the 10th of October the House of Lords killed off the prospect of voters getting the power to initiate referendums on local issues. Up until then the Localism Bill had contained a modest proposal to give local people in England the power to call non-binding referendums on local issues if 5% of their fellow voters supported them. The proposal was hedged in with safeguards and protections to ensure that it did not contravene national laws or go beyond the powers of the local authority.

But the hopes that this could see revival of local democracy with citizens being given the …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Tagged and | 27 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Simon Robinson
    'One Nation Liberals' sounds an interesting group, but googling to find out about them draws pretty much a complete blank, apart from a Guardian article about C...
  • Mark Smulian
    Good to see Attila Borzak still active in the party (see Bosmere above). I recall him from London Liberal Party in the mid-1980s when he was also one of the ver...
  • Steve Trevethan
    Thanks to Tom Arms and Matt Wardman for the relevant and interesting article and comment. In short, might it be that the USA opposes the U. N. because its ba...
  • Chloe
    Paul; At that rate are you suggesting Reform will struggle to hold onto their remaining MPs at the next election ? I understand you're narrative, but let's not ...
  • Nonconformistradical
    Jason Connor asks a fair question:- "I do wonder what level of support these LD candidates are getting. Did leaflets go out or just paper candidates?" Were ...