Author Archives: Stephen Tall

Sorry to disappoint all those of you had rushed out to buy a morning suit or new hat. The Lib Dem MP for Montgomeryshire has no current plans to wed his current beau, former Cheeky Girl, Gabriela Irimia.

Hat-tip: Jonathan Calder.

The defection of two former Lib Dem councillors (via a fortnight’s sojourn as independents) in Colchester has handed control of the local borough council to the Tories.

See the East Anglian Daily Times for more.

The Lib Dem MP for Hereford, Paul Keetch, was taken ill on Sunday while on a flight on his way to the Nato Assembly in Washington DC, and is now in a London hospital.

Our best wishes to him and his family for a full and swift recovery.

Lib Dem shadow chancellor, Vince Cable, can’t be accused of taking a soft line on highlighting the UK’s addiction to debt.

He did so in his spring conference speech three months ago, and he has now dug out figures showing the worryingly high levels of debt taken on by British households.

‘Election set for 2008’ is how The Times today reports the handover of the Labour leadership from Blair & Prescott to Brown & Harman.

Even more authoritatively, bookmakers William Hill have slashed the odds on a general election being held in 2008 from 10/1 to 5/1, according to readaBet.com. (Though 2009 remains the punters’ favourite.)

M’Lords Carlisle and Lester are in the running to replace the egregious Lord Goldsmith as Attorney General…

… according to that most reliable of news sources, the Sunday Mirror.

A Lib Dem motion underlining the importance of Royal Mail’s Universal Service Obligation was debated at Westminster Hall yesterday amid concerns that, if Royal Mail’s application for zonal charging for bulk mail is approved, bulk mail will be removed from the universal service.

As Orkney and Shetland MP Alistair Carmichael commented, “What is left will hardly be worth the name. It will hardly be universal and it will barely be a service.”

But what struck me in the debate, as reported on eGov monitor here, was this comment by fellow Scottish Lib Dem, Sir Robert Smith MP:

“the present situation has

…

As reported in today’s Mail:

Ken Livingstone has blocked the appointment of nine white men because they are “unrepresentative” of London.
The Mayor used his powers to promote equality to stop them serving on the London fire authority. He refused to confirm all but one of the Tory and Liberal Democrat nominations to the body that sets the brigade’s budget and policies. …
The Mayor approved all five Labour nominations, as well as one Tory woman and the sole Green and One London party representatives.

So, does Ken have a point? Should such public bodies be representative of the ethnic make-up of …

As Margaret Thatcher famously said, “U-turn if you want to” – and how David Cameron’s Tory party has taken this advice to heart.

No ‘Team Cameron’ proposal is now complete without the obligatory clarification reversal once the policy’s unpopularity – either with the party (grammar schools) or the public (free museum entrance) – is revealed.

As predicted on LDV yesterday, the suggestion from Hugo Swire, the Tories’ culture spokesman (and Eton and Sotheby’s alumnus), that a future Tory Government would reverse Labour’s free museums admissions policy has been swiftly jettisoned:

Conservative party officials moved quickly to dampen the row yesterday, claiming

…

Hot-on-the-heels of the grammar school debacle, the Tories have unveiled a fresh way to lose votes.

It’s the turn of Hugo Swire, Tory culture spokesman, to come up with this week’s U-turn-in-waiting:

“We do not want to ban free admissions, but we believe museums and galleries should have the right to charge if they wish to.”

According to today’s Sunday Telegraph, “a recent poll showed the measure, which costs the Government £40 million a year subsidy, is the most popular policy introduced by Labour since its election in 1997.”

Place your bets now for how long this Tory policy will last. …

David Laws, Lib Dem shadow secretary of state for work and pensions, has compiled figures showing 8.5 million Britons who have opted out of the state second pension will be worse off as a result of Gordon Brown’s last budget, which will claw back £4 bn of rebates over the next five years.

I’m not going even to attempt to paraphrase a story about S2P rebates, so read the full story here.

Lib Dem shadow home secretary Nick Clegg has hit out at Labour’s third passport price rise hike in under two years.

From October, a passport will cost £72, up from £66 now, and £42 in December 2005. In 1995, the cost of renewing a passport was just £18.

The reason for this rocketing stealth tax? ID cards, and Labour’s desperation to conceal from the public the full £20 billion costs of introducing their new compulsory surveillance system. As Nick explains:

“Last time I asked, the Government refused to justify its implausible claim that 70 per cent of the cost of ID

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Lib Dems, SNP and the Greens united at Holyrood last night united in rejecting Labour and Tory plans to replace Trident at a cost of £20 billion.

The Lib Dems successfully amended the original Green motion to state that Trident should not be replaced “at this time” to allow for the system’s use in future multilateral disarmament talks (and in line with party policy). They also pointed out that defence matters aren’t devolved, so the vote won’t make a blind bit of difference.

Lib Dem MSP Mike Rumbles argued:

We believe that the key to a safer world is to

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Lib Dem peer Lord Avebury has been doing some digging, as reported in today’s Indy…

There’s a Gordon Brown meme (started by Matt Wardman, I think) currently working its way round the blogosphere.

For those Lib Dems who have not yet been ‘tagged’, and/or for those without a blog on which to respond, feel free to leave your comments on this thread to the following set of questions:

* 2 things of which Gordon Brown should be proud.
* 2 things for which he should apologise.
* 2 things that he should do immediately when he becomes PM.
* 2 things he should do while he is PM.

Lib Dem shadow secretary of state for trade and industry, Susan Kramer, has been setting out her reasons for seeking voluntary redundancy, as the party again voices its commitment to abolish a “fundamentally flawed” department.

Susan clearly believes Gordon Brown will soon make her dream come true in the imminent Government makeover:

“My goal in coming into this role has been to put both myself and every other Front-Bench DTI spokesman out of a job. It looks as if I will achieve that later in the year. When the Department is eliminated and elements of it restructured, it is crucial

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