Author Archives: The Voice

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LDV’s Sunday Best: our 7 most-read articles this week

By The Voice | Sun 11th August 2013 - 8:26 am

Many thanks to the 11,000 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…

The Daily Mail gets it wrong again (17 comments) by Mary Reid

15 things to look out for at Liberal Democrat Conference (16 comments) by Stephen Tall

Falling livimg standards are a problem of Labour’s making (40 comments) by Nick Thornsby

Why no UKIP peers? (11 comments) by Paul Pettinger

Tim Farron MP writes…Helena Morrissey Report update (13 comments) by Tim Farron MP

Liberal Democrat Conference agenda available (8 comments) by Joe Otten

Scrap Trident nuclear weapons, say 58% of Liberal Democrat

…

Posted in Best of the blogs | Leave a comment

Lessons of Coalition (12): what do the Lib Dems need to learn from the first 3 years?

By The Voice | Sat 10th August 2013 - 8:45 am

LibDemVoice is running a daily feature, ‘Lessons of Coalition’, to assess the major do’s and don’ts learned from our experience of the first 3 years in government. Reader contributions are welcome, either as comments or posts. The word limit is no more than 450 words, and please focus on just one lesson you think the party needs to learn. Simply email your submission to [email protected]. Today Patrick Murray shares his thoughts.

Make sure our policies are reflected in our manifesto

One of the great challenges facing our society is the housing …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured, housing, lessons of coalition and patrick murray | 14 Comments

Lessons of Coalition (11): what do the Lib Dems need to learn from the first 3 years?

By The Voice | Fri 9th August 2013 - 8:25 am

The Open Coalition and Its Enemies

The most noticeable characteristic of the present Coalition Government is how similar it …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged bill le breton and lessons of coalition | 9 Comments

Lessons of Coalition (10): what do the Lib Dems need to learn from the first 3 years?

By The Voice | Thu 8th August 2013 - 8:15 am

Make the red lines deeper and wider

Do you remember the ‘What have the Romans ever done for us?’ …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged lessons of coalition and richard morris | 9 Comments

Nick Clegg’s Letter from the Leader: “Behind the scenes of ‘Call Clegg'”

By The Voice | Wed 7th August 2013 - 11:30 am

‘Nick Clegg effect helps LBC to record 1m listeners’ noted The Guardian last week — yes, the Lib Dem leader’s risky decision last January to host a weekly radio phone-in has proved a hit with the public. (“Imagine if we could do it with a politician who was popular,” side-swiped Nick’s co-host Nick Ferrari.) In this week’s letter Nick offers a behind-the-scenes video glimpse of the show…

I hope you’re having an enjoyable summer so far and getting some time to relax, enjoy the sunshine and enjoy time with family and friends.

This week I was back on LBC for my regular radio phone in show ‘Call Clegg’. I really enjoy doing it, and like the many town hall meetings I also do, it’s a great way to speak directly to the public.

Posted in News | Tagged call clegg, lbc radio, letter from the leader and nick ferrari | Leave a comment

Lessons of Coalition (9): what do the Lib Dems need to learn from the first 3 years?

By The Voice | Wed 7th August 2013 - 8:15 am

Understand the mechanics of government

Be grown up. It is possible to be grown up in politics, as exemplified by …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged lessons of coalition and rob parsons | 9 Comments

Lessons of Coalition (8): what do the Lib Dems need to learn from the first 3 years?

By The Voice | Tue 6th August 2013 - 8:15 am

We should organise ministers better

When entering coalition, Nick Clegg decided to spread out his party’s …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged lessons of coalition and robin mcghee | 9 Comments

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #337

By The Voice | Mon 5th August 2013 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 337th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere … Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (28th July – 3rd August, 2013), together with a hand-picked quintet, normally courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed.

Don’t forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.

As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:

Posted in Best of the blogs | Leave a comment

Lessons of Coalition (7): what do the Lib Dems need to learn from the first 3 years?

By The Voice | Mon 5th August 2013 - 8:04 am

The invisible ministers should up their game, or be sacked

For the start of both 2011 and 2012, I wrote …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged lessons of coalition and Mark Pack | 8 Comments

Lessons of Coalition (6): what do the Lib Dems need to learn from the first 3 years?

By The Voice | Sun 4th August 2013 - 2:20 pm

One member, one vote for all party elections

Coalition has exposed and accentuated the differences between two powerbases within the …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged lessons of coalition and louise shaw | 20 Comments

What can be done about food waste?

By The Voice | Sun 4th August 2013 - 11:40 am

It is a little known fact that the European Union has a target for reducing food waste, aiming to reduce the 2011 level by half by 2020. Astonishingly, it was estimated that 89 million tonnes of food were wasted in 2011 across the European Union. As part of their efforts to reach their target, the European Commission have recently launched a public consultation on the subject.

In response, the House of Lords European Union Committee has launched an inquiry, seeking to establish a common understanding of the issue, identify and scrutinise proposed EU-level solutions, consider their implications and identify …

Posted in News | Tagged european commission, food waste and house of lords | 7 Comments

Lessons of Coalition (5): what do the Lib Dems need to learn form the first 3 years?

By The Voice | Sat 3rd August 2013 - 10:25 am

That old “walk a mile in each others’ shoes” thing works

In the first few days of Coalition, I

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged caron lindsay and lessons of coalition | 9 Comments

Lessons of Coalition (4): what do the Lib Dems need to learn from the first 3 years?

By The Voice | Fri 2nd August 2013 - 8:01 am

Making a success of coalition government as a concept

Making a success of this coalition government meant two things for the Liberal Democrats. It …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged lessons of coalition and nick thornsby | 12 Comments

So, who are these new Liberal Democrat peers, then?

By The Voice | Thu 1st August 2013 - 5:15 pm

Earlier today, we told you about the ten new Liberal Democrat peers. We thought you might like to know a little more about them.

Cathy Bakewell

Cathy was first elected to Somerset County Council in 1993 and has since gained expertise in a number of fields: fire and rescue, policing, equalities, safeguarding children and further education. Her appointment bolsters our local government experience in the Lords. She also served on Ruth Kelly’s 2007 commission which looked at the barriers to people becoming councillors. She may have similar ideas about addressing our under-representation of women in other areas.

Olly Grender

Olly Grender’s career has …

Posted in News | Tagged alison suttie, brian paddick, cathy bakewell, christine humphreys, house of lords, ian wrigglesworth, james palumbo, jeremy purvis, olly grender, rumi verjee and zahida mansoor | 12 Comments

New Lib Dem peers announced

By The Voice | Thu 1st August 2013 - 11:09 am

The new Liberal Democrat Peers, announced today, are:

Catherine (Cathy) Mary Bakewell MBE – former leader of Somerset County Council
Rosalind (Olly) Grender MBE – former Director of Communications for Shelter and former Director of Communications for the Liberal Democrats
Christine Mary Humphreys – President of the Welsh Liberal Democrats and former Member of the National Assembly for Wales
Zahida Manzoor CBE – Former Legal Services Ombudsman and Deputy Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality
Brian Paddick – Former Deputy Assistant Commissioner in the Metropolitan Police Service
James Palumbo – Co-founder and chairman of Ministry of Sound Group, the

…

Posted in News | Tagged alison suttie, brian paddick, cathy bakewell, christine humphries, ian wrigglesworth, james palumbo, jeremy purvis, nick clegg, olly grender, rumi verjee and zahida manzoor | 42 Comments

Lessons of Coalition (3): what do the Lib Dems need to learn from the first 3 years?

By The Voice | Thu 1st August 2013 - 8:03 am

Government: What’s Occurrin?

A couple of years ago I took a trip to Barry Island and went on one of the …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged gareth epps and lessons of coalition | 3 Comments

Lessons of Coalition (2): what do the Lib Dems need to learn from the first 3 years?

By The Voice | Wed 31st July 2013 - 8:15 am

Better party communications responding to the realities of governing

My lesson of coalition is the importance of building a Party …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged lessons of coalition and mark valladares | 17 Comments

Know someone in local government who deserves an award?

By The Voice | Tue 30th July 2013 - 1:52 pm

The ALDE Group in the Committee of the Regions has launched the third edition of the awards for key liberal players at regional and local level. This year’s awards ceremony will be held on 4th of December in Brussels.

Both the national board of ALDE and EDP member parties as well as their local branches can submit nominations of persons that are considered to be suitable candidates for such an award, accompanied by a small motivation. Nominations need to reach the ALDE Secretariat by 30th September 2013.

There will be 2 categories of awards:

Local Leader of the Year

Regional Leader of the Year

Each …

Posted in Europe / International, Local government and News | Tagged awards, europe and Local government | 2 Comments

LDV’s Sunday Best: our 7 most-read articles this week

By The Voice | Sun 28th July 2013 - 2:30 pm

Many thanks to the 15,000 unique visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…

Opinion: Cameron’s porn ban – what does it mean? by Iain Roberts (42 comments)

POLL EXCLUSIVE: What Lib Dem members think will happen in 2015 and what we want to happen in the event of a hung parliament by Stephen Tall (47 comments)

Labour MP for Tottenham tells residents: wait until September for help by Mark Pack (15 comments)

The good news on university applications in 5 graphs by Stephen Tall (29 comments)

Exclusive: Liberal Democrats: “Go home” poster vans “disproportionate, distasteful and …

Posted in Site news | Tagged site news | Leave a comment

Nick Clegg’s Letter from the Leader: It’s Summer – back to work

By The Voice | Sun 28th July 2013 - 10:40 am

This week, Nick’s focus is on the Liberal Democrats’ Million Jobs campaign. He talks about his experience shadowing an apprentice in a pharmacy in his Sheffield constituency. We’re glad he reassured us that his work was carefully double and triple checked. Find out what other Liberal Democrat MPs are up to in their areas…

This summer, Liberal Democrat MPs and Peers are going back to the shop floor and finding out what it is like to be an apprentice.

For my part, I spent some time last week

…

Posted in News | Tagged letter from the leader and million jobs campaign | 6 Comments

What’s being debated in our members’ forum this week?

By The Voice | Sat 27th July 2013 - 2:55 pm

LibDemVoice has two parallel sites. The first is our public blog, the thing you’re reading now. The second is our private members’ forum, which only current Lib Dem members can access.

If you’re a member and want to chat with fellow party members about any issue that’s on your mind, then why not sign up? In addition, you’ll be included in our regular surveys’ of party members’ views.

Here’s some of the most active discussions this past 10 days:

Reasons the Lib Dems will find it difficult to continue the Coalition

…

Posted in Site news | 2 Comments

Mixed by-election results – joy in Maghull, commiserations in Kingston

By The Voice | Fri 26th July 2013 - 11:20 am

So, who says the Liberal Democrats can’t take seats off Labour in the north?

Actually, we can. In Maghull, just north of Liverpool, two wards of the town council turned from red to gold and another came within 9 tantalising votes of doing the same. Our vigorous campaign won a 20% swing from Labour.

And, it seems, those fabulous Liberal Youth people were on the case, too.

Was great to be out earlier campaigning in Maghull. We had a full committee room with average age of about 25 – lots of @liberalyouth peeps.

— James King (@jamesinoxford) July 25, 2013

Well done …

Posted in Local government and News | Tagged by-election results and Local government | 12 Comments

Got some spare time? Can you help out in Kingston today?

By The Voice | Thu 25th July 2013 - 12:51 pm

There’s a whole crop of by-elections today across the country. ALDC have the details here over three pages. Have a look for details of one near you and do what you can to help your local campaign.

However, there is only one Liberal Democrat defence, in Edward Davey’s Kingston constituency, so here at the Voice we are asking Liberal Democrat supporters reading this to concentrate their efforts there.

Lesley Heap is our candidate in Beverley ward. She’s a former NHS worker who’s now a swimming coach. She’s lived in the ward for 12 years. And she needs you to ring her supporters …

Posted in Local government, London and News | Tagged by-elections, kingston council and lesley heap | 4 Comments

Last chance to book for conference at reduced rates

By The Voice | Thu 25th July 2013 - 10:02 am

Tomorrow – 26 July – is the last day on which it is possible to book to attend conference at reduced rates. A full week at full price is, until tomorrow, £96 – after that the price rises to £134.

You can book here.

Posted in News | Tagged #ldconf | Leave a comment

Lib Dem MP Sir Bob Russell slams Israeli parliament for “ethnically cleansing between 40,000 and 60,000 Bedouin”

By The Voice | Wed 24th July 2013 - 8:05 pm

Lib Dem MP Sir Bob Russell launched a broadside in the Commons last week against the Israeli parliament for approving (in his words) “what can be described only as ethnically cleansing between 40,000 and 60,000 Bedouin”.

He went on to attack the US Government and the European Union for their inaction and the British media for its silence — but singled out for praise Jewish Voice for Peace, which is campaigning against what it terms “this massive violation of human rights”. His call was echoed by the Conservative …

Posted in News and Parliament | Tagged bedouin, bob russell, bob stewart, israel and jewish voice of peace | 18 Comments

Nick Clegg on the Royal birth: “Good news to make the whole country smile”

By The Voice | Tue 23rd July 2013 - 8:45 am

Here’s how Lib Dem MPs responded to the news of the new addition to the Royal Family…

Congratulations to The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Good news to make the whole country smile

— Nick Clegg (@nick_clegg) July 22, 2013

Congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the arrival of their baby boy!

— Michael Moore (@MichaelMooreMP) July 22, 2013

Posted in News | Tagged andrew george, Michael Moore, mike crockart, nick clegg and royal family | 11 Comments

The Royal Baby: the Liberal Democrat Voice non-rolling coverage

By The Voice | Mon 22nd July 2013 - 11:45 am

We at the Voice obviously wish the Duchess of Cambridge, and anyone else giving birth today, all the very best. However, you will be relieved to know that we won’t be dispatching any members of our team to West London to hang around outside St Mary’s Hospital and write copious amounts of rather hilarious speculation about what might be going on inside. We recognise that we might be missing a trick, and that, actually, people do want to hear men speculate about what Kate might be feeling, but we reckon we’re on pretty safe ground with our readers.

Two things that …

Posted in News | Tagged dfid, lynne featherstone, maternal mortality and royal baby | 17 Comments

LibLink… we’re still fighting the cold war

By The Voice | Mon 22nd July 2013 - 10:56 am

The UK does not need a hair-trigger nuclear weapons system to keep it safe. To suggest otherwise is Cold War thinking at its most outdated – and last week it was a shame to see both the Conservative and Labour parties in denial…

…writes Danny Alexander in the Independent.

Danny goes on to argue that the level of alertness of a weapons system should be justified by a threat level – a doctrine that is accepted for conventional weapons. He points out that we have an opportunity to take a positive step towards disarmament, and that this debate should not be …

Posted in News | 9 Comments