Author Archives: The Voice

The Voice

Nick Clegg’s Letter from the Leader: “Trident: we need to protect ourselves from the threats of the future not the past”

By The Voice | Sat 20th July 2013 - 2:55 pm

libdem letter from nick clegg

Trident, Britain’s nuclear weapons system, divides opinion. That was apparent this week when the Government published the results of a two-year, detailed study of the alternatives.

Some people say Britain should surrender our nuclear weapons tomorrow, regardless of what threats we face. While others seem to believe it’s unpatriotic to even consider anything other than the full-scale Trident system we built for the Cold War threats of yesterday.

Personally, I think the world has changed. I am not, and never have been, a believer in unilateral disarmament. But I

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The Voice

David Ward has party whip withdrawn over “Jews” comment

By The Voice | Thu 18th July 2013 - 1:45 pm

The BBC reports on the outcome of a meeting between David Ward, MP for Bradford East, Nick Clegg and Alistair Carmichael:

Liberal Democrat MP David Ward has had his party’s whip withdrawn over controversial comments he made in the lead-up to Holocaust Day in January.

Mr Ward said “the Jews”, who had suffered during the Holocaust, had inflicted “atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel” within a few years.

He also posted a tweet at the weekend, calling Israel an “apartheid state”.

Mr Ward is said to be “disappointed” by the Lib Dem leadership’s decision.

The MP for Bradford East wrote

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The Voice

RIP Pratap Chitnis

By The Voice | Mon 15th July 2013 - 8:47 am

In memory of Pratap Chitnis, we reproduce below Mark Pack’s tribute to an unjustly forgotten Liberal Hero. The Guardian’s obituary is here.

Pratap (later Lord) Chitnis was the post-war Liberal Party’s first grassroots campaigning mastermind, whose pioneering activities laid the groundwork for the later work of better known people such as Trevor Jones and Chris Rennard.

Born in 1936 to a family with a history of Liberal politics (his grandfather stood and lost in 1906), he was inspired by Jo Grimond to join the Liberal Party himself in 1958. Chitnis first worked in the National Liberal Club’s library and then …

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The Voice

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

By The Voice | Sun 14th July 2013 - 5:35 pm

Many thanks to the 14,000 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…

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The Voice

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

By The Voice | Sat 13th July 2013 - 5:25 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:

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The Voice

Liberal Reform comment on Royal Mail privatisation

By The Voice | Fri 12th July 2013 - 2:15 pm

In the wake of Vince Cable’s announcement that the Royal Mail would be privatised, we asked Liberal Reform and the Social Liberal Forum for their comments. We haven’t received anything from SLF yet, but here is what Liberal Reform co-chair Alan Muhammed had to say:

Liberal Reform welcomes the floatation of the Royal Mail, an organisation that has long required reform.  These moves will generate the biggest employee share scheme for 30 years and enables greater access to capital, crucial for sustaining the Royal Mail as a successful commercial business, delivering a vital service that the nation values.
There’s a substantial amount

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The Voice

Vince Cable announces Royal Mail privatisation

By The Voice | Wed 10th July 2013 - 2:29 pm

Today Vince Cable announced, to no surprise whatsoever, that the Royal Mail is to be privatised.

Key points

  • This does not affect the Post Office – although options on mutualisation will be considered. No Post Offices will close.
  • A majority stake will be floated on the stock exchange
  • The 6 day a week flat rate service is set in stone.
  • 10% of shares available for employees, free to the employee, to either give them a cash windfall or a say in how the company is run.

Why privatise?

Under public ownership there is simply not the freedom to raise capital in the markets. A share sale will

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The Voice

Nick Clegg’s message for Ramadan

By The Voice | Mon 8th July 2013 - 8:47 pm

The values of peace, empathy and charity are an essential part of this holy month of Ramadan and evident within the invaluable contribution of British Muslims to strengthen communities across the UK.

So said Nick Clegg in his video to mark the start of Ramadan, also available on You Tube here.

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The Voice

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

By The Voice | Sun 7th July 2013 - 1:20 pm

Many thanks to the 10,000 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…

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The Voice

Lynne Featherstone re-selected in Hornsey and Wood Green

By The Voice | Sun 7th July 2013 - 11:17 am

Not that there was ever any doubt, but the process has been done and Lynne Featherstone has been reselected to stand for Hornsey and Wood Green at the 2015. She said on her website that she was delighted at the decision:

I am simply delighted by the confidence the local Liberal Democrat members have shown in me. It was a fantastic evening, and I’d like to thank the members, the local party, and fellow Lib Dem MP Ed Davey for making such a great speech.

It was also so special to have my political heroine, Baroness Shirley Williams, in attendance supporting

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The Voice

Schools for profit? Not on my watch, says Nick Clegg

By The Voice | Wed 3rd July 2013 - 8:38 am

From today’s Independent:

Nick Clegg vowed today to veto any move by the Conservatives to allow academies and free schools to become profit-making businesses.

The Deputy Prime Minister intervened after The Independent revealed that Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, is considering plans to redraw the rules to allow the schools to use hedge funds and venture capitalists to raise money.

The Liberal Democrats will block any moves to change the rules before the 2015 general election.  During the election campaign, Mr Clegg’s party will claim that they acted as a brake on the Tories inside the Coalition.  “We will say we stopped

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The Voice

LDV’s Sunday Best

By The Voice | Sun 30th June 2013 - 10:00 am

Many thanks to the 12,000 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…

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The Voice

Lynne: Police should target “cutters” who perform genital mutilation on girls in Britain, not their parents

By The Voice | Sat 29th June 2013 - 9:20 am

Lynne Featherstone in Zambia. Photo: some rights reserved by DFID http://www.flickr.com/photos/dfid/8220719712/The London Evening Standard reports:

Police should target “cutters” who perform genital mutilation on girls in Britain, rather than the parents who pay for it, International Development minister Lynne Featherstone says.

The minister, who this week visited Kenya to see how female genital mutilation is being stamped out there, said Britain needs to speed up the first prosecution here to send a warning that the practice will not be tolerated. FGM has been illegal in the UK since 1985 but nobody has

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The Voice

EU funding helps UK punch above its weight on science

By The Voice | Wed 26th June 2013 - 10:51 am

Yesterday, MEPs and national ministers in Brussels agreed on the new EU research and innovation programme “Horizon 2020”.

Horizon 2020 is structured around three ‘pillars’;

  • ‘Excellence in the science base’ – aims to strengthen the EU’s world-class excellence in science, particularly through a significant strengthening of the European Research Council, which mainly focuses on frontier research
  • ‘Creating industrial leadership and competitive frameworks’ – aims to support business research and innovation. Actions will cover: increasing investment in enabling industrial technologies and support for innovation in SMEs with high growth potential
  • ‘Tackling societal challenges’ – aims to respond directly to challenges identified in Europe

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The Voice

Vince vs Danny and Osborne?

By The Voice | Sun 23rd June 2013 - 1:46 pm

From the Observer:

Vince Cable is refusing to accept deep cuts to his departmental budget without a guarantee of billions in funding for job-creating capital projects, as arguments over this week’s spending review reached a new pitch.

With just three days before George Osborne is due to announce £11.5bn of cuts for 2015-16, the business secretary was said to be in no mood to back down in a dispute he regards as crucial to the government’s economic credibility.

Cable is arguing, in talks with Treasury ministers and officials, that the coalition must have “a strong story to

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The Voice

Farron on alleged CQC Morecambe Bay NHS Trust cover-up: “Justice must now take its course”

By The Voice | Thu 20th June 2013 - 5:00 pm

Tim FarronHere’s the question Tim Farron — in whose Cumbrian constituency Morecambe Bay NHS Trust falls — asked of Health secretary Jeremy Hunt yesterday, after it was reported that senior staff at the NHS regulator, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), sought to cover-up a critical review of their conduct following a series of baby deaths at Furness General Hospital:

Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD): My constituents can be forgiven for wondering whether, when the watchdog chooses to muzzle itself, it is time to put it to sleep. The report shows that

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The Voice

Nick Clegg: “I completely condemn all forms of domestic violence”

By The Voice | Thu 20th June 2013 - 1:06 pm

Stephen Tall has just written a post on Nick Clegg’s LBC comments about Charles Saatchi grabbing Nigella Lawson’s throat while they were having dinner, an incident  for which Saatchi accepted a Police caution.

Nick Clegg has now issued a statement clarifying his remarks:

I completely condemn all forms of domestic violence.

As I said on the radio, my instinct would always be to try and protect the weaker person, to try and protect the person who otherwise would be hurt.

But I was asked a very specific question about how I would have reacted to a specific incident which I did not see.

I

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The Voice

Michael Moore’s BBC webcast on Scottish Independence

By The Voice | Wed 19th June 2013 - 2:53 pm

Mike Moore BBC webcastSecretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore has done a special half hour webcast to make the case for Scotland staying in the UK. He was asked, among other things, about why the UK Government weren’t pre-negotiating the terms of independence:

I don’t want to see independence so I’m not in the best frame of mind for sitting down and working out what independence would look like. I understand that people want to have a flavour of the issues that are at stake and that is being answered by

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The Voice

Labour play games on Robin Hood Tax

By The Voice | Wed 19th June 2013 - 1:28 pm

Labour’s attempt to force a vote on a financial transaction tax, outlined in yesterday’s Guardian, appears to be more of a ruse to embarrass the Liberal Democrats than a serious attempt to develop a consensus on the issue. The SNP used to habitually put forward motions in the Scottish Parliament aimed at splitting the Labour/Liberal Democrat Government. It’s just something that happens.

The reality is that things change on this over time, by painstaking negotiation, not by a mischief making motion in Parliament. We know that the idea of such a tax sits well with Liberal Democrats. Vince Cable has …

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The Voice

LDVideo: Danny Alexander on UK’s commitment to tax transparency and the unproven case for arming the rebels in Syria

By The Voice | Sun 16th June 2013 - 12:35 pm

Lib Dem chief secretary to the treasury Danny Alexander did the rounds of the TV studios yesterday to promote the Coalition’s actions to increase tax transparency. You can see his BBC News interview here. On Channel 4 meanwhile, he was also quizzed about whether he thought the UK should help arm Syrian rebels: he said the case was unproven that would help the country at this time:

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The Voice

Nick Clegg is on the Andrew Marr Show

By The Voice | Sun 16th June 2013 - 8:53 am

Nick Clegg on BBCYour 10 minute warning: go and get yourself a nice cup of tea and settle down to watch the Andrew Marr Show.

There’s no long lie and being pampered for Nick Clegg this morning as he’s being interviewed. We’ll be back with full coverage later.

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The Voice

Nick Clegg holds firm on snoopers’ charter

By The Voice | Sat 15th June 2013 - 2:30 pm

Nick Clegg has indicated that he will not change his position on the so called “snoopers’ charter” despite calls for him to do so by four former home secretaries.  A group of politicians, including Liberal Democrat peer Lord Carlile wrote to the Times (£) to say that the Bill was necessary:

It has always been a requirement, and always will be, that such intrusive intercepts are subject to time-limited warrants. Their use is guided by a strict criterion of necessity and proportionality, and are only permitted to protect national security and counter serious criminal conduct. We find it odd

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The Voice

Vince Cable: A million jobs for a stronger economy

By The Voice | Sat 15th June 2013 - 8:18 am

A million jobsVince Cable emailed party members last night kicking off the Party’s “A million jobs for a stronger economy” campaign. This is what he said:

This campaign will promote the fact that Liberal Democrats in Government have helped business create more than one million private sector jobs. Our ambition is to help create a million more new jobs.

Click here to find out how you can support the campaign.

I’m proud of our Government’s record on job creation.

Since 2010 we have helped create:

  1. Jobs for young people – 1.2 million apprentices and 110,000

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The Voice

The LDV Friday Five: 14 June 2013

By The Voice | Fri 14th June 2013 - 5:00 pm

It’s Friday. It’s five o’clock. Here’s a fistful of lists that sum up the LDV week:

5 most-read stories on LDV this week

  1. Ashcroft’s latest poll: a couple of interesting findings about the Lib Dems (39 comments) by Stephen Tall
  2. Unpaid internships: Tim Farron replies (23 comments) by Tim Farron MP
  3. The Lib Dem narrative dilemma: forget about 2010, start looking forward to 2015 (47 comments) by Stephen Tall
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The Voice

Kingston Lib Dems’ council leader Derek Osbourne arrested on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children

By The Voice | Fri 14th June 2013 - 10:20 am

Lib Dems in Kingston have been left shocked by the sudden resignation of council leader Derek Osbourne following his arrest on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children.

The news broke on Wednesday, with the local paper reporting a statement by Cllr Liz Green, acting leader of Kingston Council: “Derek Osbourne has resigned from the Liberal Democrat group. We are deeply shocked by these allegations but I am unable to comment further as we must now allow the police the time and space they need to investigate the allegations thoroughly and without prejudice.”

The paper reports today that he …

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The Voice

Statement from Nick Clegg on the Morrissey Report

By The Voice | Wed 12th June 2013 - 4:05 pm

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg has made this statement following the release of Helena Morrissey’s independent report into processes and culture within the Liberal Democrats and her recommendations for change:

I’m very grateful to Helena Morrissey for her very thorough report.

It makes sobering reading. It shows that stretching over a 20 year period a series of mistakes were made which left a number of women feeling seriously let down and for that there is absolutely no excuse whatsoever.

The report also shows that the individuals who dealt with their complaints had the right motives, but there weren’t the right processes

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The Voice

Morrissey Inquiry into Party processes and culture

By The Voice | Wed 12th June 2013 - 4:00 pm

Liberal Democrat Chief Executive Tim Gordon has just emailed Party members about the Helena Morrissey Report, published at 4pm today:

Today Helena Morrissey published the report of her independent inquiry into allegations made in February that the Party had failed to respond adequately to complaints and warnings of alleged sexual harassment.

You can find Helena’s full report here.

The report concluded – and the Party has accepted – that, despite recent improvements, and despite the fact that the report is clear that those with whom issues were raised acted in good faith, it failed to deliver the procedures needed in a modern

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The Voice

Farron backs ‘Get Better, Get British’ campaign to get more UK food into our hospitals

By The Voice | Sun 9th June 2013 - 12:30 pm

Tim Farron in his constituencyFarmers Weekly reports:

Liberal Democrat president Tim Farron has called for a parliamentary debate based on Farmers Weekly’s campaign to get more UK food into our hospitals. Mr Farron, who is also MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, launched an early day motion in support of the Get Better, Get British campaign on 5 June. The motion calls for MPs to debate the issue at the earliest opportunity and calls on the Department of Health and DEFRA to support the campaign’s aims.

And here is early day motion …

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The Voice

Stephen Williams gets award from World Health Organisation for anti smoking work

By The Voice | Wed 5th June 2013 - 7:47 pm

Stephen and Anna Soubry - WHO AwardEvery year on World No Tobacco Day, the World Health Organisation gives out medals to people who have made outstanding contributions to tobacco control.

There were just six awards given out in Europe, and one of them was to Liberal Democrat MP for Bristol West, Stephen Williams, who was nominated by two organisations, Action on Smoking and Health and Smokefree South West.

He was presented with the medal by Health Minister Anna Soubry today. The Minister backed his campaign for plain packaging of cigarettes.

Since he …

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The Voice

Lib Link… Nick Clegg: Sadly, I’m not surprised by these revelations. Westminster is crying out for reform

By The Voice | Mon 3rd June 2013 - 12:45 pm

I know that the absence of the register from last month’s Queen’s Speech raised some concerns. So let me be clear: it will happen.

That was Nick Clegg writing in the Telegraph following accusations that an MP and three peers were engaging in paid lobbying.

Also on the table is the power of recall of corrupt MPs – something also raised by Tories Dan Hannan and Douglas Carswell elsewhere in the Telegraph. The point at issue between the two positions: whether there must be wrongdoing, or whether recall is at the absolute discretion of the petitioners and …

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