Author Archives: The Voice

The Voice

Clegg unveils 100-day plan to abolish Lords and reform voting

By The Voice | Wed 27th May 2009 - 10:39 pm

The Guardian splashes with the story:

Britain’s politicians should be barred from taking their summer holidays until the constitutional crisis sparked by the expenses row is resolved and “every nook and cranny” of the political system is reformed, Nick Clegg declares today. …

Clegg, who regards the proposals floated by the two main parties as too timid, attempts to assume the mantle of Britain’s boldest reformer when he sets out a week-by-week, 100-day plan to achieve the “total reinvention of British politics”.

In the first two weeks parliament would agree to accept the recommendations of the review into MPs’ expenses and allowances

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Posted in LibLink and News | Tagged and | 20 Comments
The Voice

Barbara Alexander RIP

By The Voice | Thu 21st May 2009 - 4:20 pm

In today’s Guardian, Stephen Keeler pays tribute to former Liberal Democrat councillor Barbara Alexander:

My friend and former colleague Barbara Alexander, who has died after a long illness aged 70, was an inspirational teacher, a dedicated local councillor and a tireless worker on behalf of a number of charities. …

Both were elected to Richmond-upon-Thames council in 1990, and Barbara worked tirelessly as a Liberal Democrat councillor and school governor, increasing her workload after Gavin’s death in 1993. She was deputy council leader, sat on education and social services committees, and chaired the governing bodies of Hampton community college and Carlisle infant

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Posted in Obituaries | 2 Comments
The Voice

Chris Rennard to stand down as Lib Dem chief executive after 4th June elections

By The Voice | Thu 21st May 2009 - 12:27 pm

This just emailed to members:

My reason for writing is that I have decided to make the current election campaigns my last as Chief Executive. I discussed this with Nick some time ago and I have given notice to the Party President that I will stand down as Chief Executive at the end of the Summer.

I want to be able to work more flexibly in future whilst of course continuing to help our party advance. I believe that I will be better able to do so without the administrative burdens of being Chief Executive and running the

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Posted in News | Tagged | 29 Comments
The Voice

Tim Montgomerie writes about www.nothingbritish.com

By The Voice | Tue 19th May 2009 - 3:00 pm

We’ve taken the slightly unusual step of inviting Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome to write this guest post as his latest internet venture is one on which there is much common ground.

It’s a great pleasure to write for Liberal Democrat Voice. I read it most days and learn a great deal from it. More than occasionally it gives me ideas for posts on ConservativeHome!

We have many things in common as Conservatives and Liberal Democrats and many things that divide us. Perhaps the most important area of common ground is our belief in a Britain where every person – regardless …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Tagged , and | 30 Comments
The Voice

The Independent View: My journey to becoming a Liberal Democrat – well, almost

By The Voice | Sun 17th May 2009 - 5:40 pm

I have come to the conclusion I am a Liberal Democrat, but have not yet pulled my finger out and joined the party. I am a student studying politics and have recently begun to question my political alliances.

Back in September, at the beginning of my degree, I joined the Labour party – mainly due to its cheap member’s fee. I no longer have any faith in the Labour party or Gordon Brown, whilst I would never consider voting Tory. Naturally my only remaining option was Lib Dem. Of course I could have aligned myself with a minority party, the Greens …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | 28 Comments
The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Nick Clegg – Voters’ trust in democracy is shattered. We must restore it

By The Voice | Sun 17th May 2009 - 11:43 am

Over at The Observer, Nick Clegg argues, after a tumultuous week in politics, that the public must be given more power than the politicians. Here’s an excerpt:

We are in the eye of the perfect storm: an economic crisis followed by a total collapse of public faith in politicians. One way or another, MPs’ self-serving expenses will now, thankfully, be changed for good. But this must be a moment for fundamental change, not just tinkering to eliminate the worst excesses of the past. The uncomfortable truth is that these revelations are merely the tip of an iceberg – our whole political

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged , , and | 9 Comments
The Voice

Clegg calls for Speaker Michael Martin to quit

By The Voice | Sun 17th May 2009 - 10:09 am

Lib Dem leader has become the first party leader publicly to call on House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin to quit. The BBC has the story:

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has called on Commons Speaker Michael Martin to stand down, saying he has become an obstacle to much-needed reform of Parliament. Mr Clegg said the speaker should do the “decent thing” and step aside, saying he was not the “right man” for the job. He criticised the speaker for “dragging his feet” over the issue of MPs’ expenses, causing such public anger. …

By becoming the most senior politician –

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The Voice

Speaker to face yellow peril?

By The Voice | Fri 15th May 2009 - 5:46 pm

The Times reports:

Suspicions that the Liberal Democrats are to lead a move to oust the Speaker grew today after a top party figure hinted that a critical Commons motion could be lodged.

Vince Cable, the party’s deputy leader, disclosed that there would be a party statement about Michael Martin next week after Chris Huhne, the Home Affairs spokesman, made an outright call for the Speaker to go.

Mr Cable said that he and the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg were expecting to make a statement on the issue of the Speaker on behalf of the party within the next few

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The Voice

Ros Scott on party reaction to MPs’ expenses

By The Voice | Fri 15th May 2009 - 12:15 pm

Over at her blog, the Lib Dem party president Baroness Ros Scott reports back to members on how the party is going to deal with the vexed issue of MPs’ expenses – and specifically those allegations which relate to Lib Dem MPs:

The Liberal Democrats at Westminster are engaged in two main tasks. In both Houses, the details of individuals’ claims are being gone through to ensure that they comply with existing Parliamentary rules. Nobody is going to be hung out to dry on the say so of a newspaper. The second task is to reform the existing system, something

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 4 Comments
The Voice

Clegg calls on Brown and Cameron to accept Kelly’s recommendations on expenses

By The Voice | Thu 14th May 2009 - 5:59 pm

This news release popped into the Voice’s inbox from party HQ late this afternoon – Nick Clegg has today written to Gordon Brown and David Cameron to call on them to declare that they will accept in full the recommendations of Sir Christopher Kelly’s investigation into MPs’ expenses.

Here’s Nick’s letter in full:

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Sarah Teather on those flipping MPs

By The Voice | Tue 12th May 2009 - 12:08 pm

Sarah Teather, MP for Brent East, writes passionately in today’s Guardian on the lack of reform in MPs’ expenses:

Every time I hear an MP found out for “flipping”, tax avoidance or profiteering argue they were just following the rules and that the rules now need to change I find myself yelling at the television: “Where were you when we had a chance to change the rules last summer? You were voting in the other lobby!”

The rules were (and still are) so vague that all manner of personal wealth creation on the public purse was perfectly possible. Believe it or

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Vince Cable – Arthur, Delia and another rotten bubble

By The Voice | Mon 11th May 2009 - 6:14 pm

Over at the Daily Mail, Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable examines the disconnect between the have-nots and the ‘haves and have-yachts’ in the sporting world, and asks if ‘The Storm’ will close the gap:

First it was debt, then property. Now I sense another bubble waiting to burst. While some of Britain’s key wealth-generating activities – construction, manufacturing, finance – are in terrible shape, one industry sails serenely on apparently oblivious to the recession: football’s Premier League. Britain’s leading banks may have bitten the dust but our top clubs dominate Europe and, arguably, the world. …

I can’t see this party

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged and | 9 Comments
The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Norman Baker triple bill on MPs’ expenses

By The Voice | Mon 11th May 2009 - 11:30 am

The Lib Dems’ very own sleazebusting terrier Norman Baker (who daylights as our shadow transport secretary) has three – count ’em – articles on MPs’ expenses in the papers. Excerpts as follows:

Never in my 20 years in politics have I seen the public as angry as today (Daily Mail)

Little did I know, when I submitted a Freedom of Information request back in 2005, what a Pandora’s Box was opening up. That modest request, simply asking for a breakdown of MPs’ travel costs by mode of transport, was fought tooth and nail by the senior MPs who comprise the House

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged and | 5 Comments
The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Caroline Pidgeon – Boris Johnson’s first year is no cause for celebration

By The Voice | Tue 5th May 2009 - 9:01 pm

Caroline Pidgeon, Liberal Democrat Transport spokesperson on the London Assembly, writes in today’s Guardian on Boris Johnson’s first year as Mayor of London.

She says that although Johnson has promised much, he has failed to deliver on most of it:

On transport alone there has been a long list of broken promises.

Johnson pledged to establish a new express bus service that would orbit outer London. A year after being elected, not one orbital bus route has even been planned.

The mayor promised to convene an “emergency summit” of the train operating companies to tackle overcrowding and exorbitant fares. A year on,

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The Voice

Ros Scott’s party president report, April 2009

By The Voice | Mon 4th May 2009 - 8:56 pm

Those of you wishing to find out what Lib Dem party president Baroness Ros Scott has been up to in the past month (or so) can sate your curiosity over at her Because Baronesses are people too blog. Here’s an excerpt to entice you:

I’ve been working with Jeremy Hargreaves (Vice Chair Federal Policy Committee) and a group of his colleagues to look at how members might be more involved in policy making. We have a number of new initiatives which you should see being rolled out during the summer. This should be a major step forward in providing more

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The Voice

Want to hear Chris Huhne speak on ‘Threats to Civil Liberties’?

By The Voice | Mon 4th May 2009 - 7:29 am

If you’re answer is yes, the the following notice will be of interest to you:


British Institute of Human Rights Lunchtime Lecture
Tuesday 5 May, 1 -2 pm
Threats to Civil Liberties
Chris Huhne MP, Shadow Secretary of State for the Home Department

Chris Huhne MP will present the Liberal Democrats’ perspective on a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities and discuss their own Freedom Bill. Lecture to be followed by a Q&A.

Venue: Mander Hall, Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, London WC1H 9DB

Booking information: There is no charge to attend our lectures, but it is necessary

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The Voice

As if swine ‘flu weren’t bad enough…

By The Voice | Thu 30th April 2009 - 9:45 am

Lib Dem shadow health secretary Norman Lamb has warned that diseases such as whooping cough and scarlet fever are making a “dramatic comeback”. The Health Service Journal reports:

Cases of whooping cough have almost trebled since 2003, from 386 to 1,071 a year in 2008. The number of cases of scarlet fever has risen from 2,121 in 2003 to 2,845 in 2008.

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said: “It is shocking that diseases which should belong to a bygone era are making a dramatic comeback. Ministers have ‘failed in their duty’

“Many of these illnesses can be prevented with a

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Vince Cable – I like optimists, but I don’t buy Mr Darling’s miracle

By The Voice | Thu 30th April 2009 - 8:45 am

Over at the Daily Mail, Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable delivers his robust verdict on Alistair Darling’s 2009 budget. Here’s an excerpt:

I argued the main requirement was an honest statement, without spin, of the country’s problems. Darling was candid enough about the scale of the budget deficit – which will be a staggering 12 per cent of GDP this year and next, forcing the Government to borrow unprecedented sums to cover the collapse of revenue from financial services and the falling housing market. …

Darling was less honest about the prospects for recovery. He cheerfully assumed growth will return soon.

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Ming Campbell – Gurkhas undaunted, Brown defeated

By The Voice | Wed 29th April 2009 - 10:42 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free blog, former Lib Dem leader Ming Campbell explains how today’s Commons defeat of the policy to restrict Gurkhas’ right to settle in the UK is another crack in Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s authority:

What the government failed to appreciate was the extent of feeling within the Commons and the enormous public affection outside. The Gurkhas hold a special place in British hearts and, for once, public opinion was in favour of immigration rather than against it. …

It is wise to remember the government hasn’t fallen. But this defeat adds to the woes of a

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The Voice

Sarah Teather on sex and politics

By The Voice | Wed 29th April 2009 - 10:20 pm

Today’s Times asked five female MPs for their perspectives – here’s what Sarah Teather had to say about the difference sex makes to how women are treated in politics:

I never would have imagined myself doing this job. I speak to female researchers who are brilliant, confident and articulate and they say that they’ve never thought of being an MP. They see people working in the building and think, ‘That’s not for me – I want a life.’

“The qualities that are prized in the Westminster village are quite male. The “yah, boo” politician, the big hitter; inevitably that means aggressive and

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 11 Comments
The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV

By The Voice | Sat 25th April 2009 - 11:44 am

Vince Cable has a budget special piece in yesterday’s Independent:

This is a time for grown-up debate. The deficit is too big and the public is too cynical of politicians to be taken in by vague, unspecific, promises. The only way forward is to identify, explicitly, areas of government activity which will have to be cut right back. My party has already identified several specific cuts – like the ID card scheme; the NHS IT project; “baby bonds”; refusing unlimited taxpayer subsidies for nuclear power. We believe that there now has to be a serious debate about how to scale

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Posted in LibLink | 3 Comments
The Voice

Laws on the Sats’ fiasco: “The issue now is whether ministerial heads should be rolling”

By The Voice | Wed 22nd April 2009 - 12:03 pm

Ken Boston, former exam chief for England, has not minced his words when giving evidence to a committee of MPs on last summer’s Sats’ marking fiasco. The BBC reports:

Dr Boston, former head of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, described ministers’ version of what happened as “fiction”. The marking of more than a million test papers taken by 11-year-olds was delayed for months when the company contracted to run the marking – ETS Europe – ran into problems. It later lost the contract. Results of the controversial tests are used to draw up the primary school league tables. Last year’s

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Vince Cable – My Budget to revive Britain’s ailing economy

By The Voice | Mon 20th April 2009 - 12:37 pm

Over at the Daily Mail, Lib Dem deputy leader and shadow chancellor Vince Cable oultines his plans to get the British economy back on track. Here’s an excerpt:

What can the Government do in the Budget to help avert an unemployment crisis? The panicky VAT cut, designed to get consumers spending again, was not a success and very expensive for the Government.

It would be better now to redirect the remaining £8.5billion set aside to public works projects which provide jobs and leave taxpayers with a useful asset at the end of it.

The obvious priority is affordable housing. Private house building has

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The Voice

Huhne attacks RIPA snoopers’ charter: “the Government’s surveillance society has got out of hand”

By The Voice | Fri 17th April 2009 - 12:55 pm

Today’s Times reports:

Councils are to have their powers to snoop on the public severely curtailed. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, will signal government plans today to reverse the expansion of the surveillance society amid growing alarm at the extent of official spying.

And not before time, for as the paper reports elsewhere:

A survey by the Liberal Democrats found that 182 of the 475 local authorities in England and Wales had authorised the use of Ripa powers on 10,288 occasions in the past five years.

It found that 1,615 council staff have the power to authorise their use

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Posted in Big mad database, LDV campaigns and News | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
The Voice

Vince calls for investigation into FSA’s “appallingly bad job”

By The Voice | Fri 17th April 2009 - 9:48 am

The Times reports:

The Financial Services Authority was accused last night by one of its former supervisors of complacency in its past regulation of building societies.

The unnamed whistleblower, who approached Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats Treasury spokesman, said that the FSA ignored a warning three years ago that risky self-certified loans had been packaged and sold to building societies that thought they were conventional loans.

Mr Cable has written to Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, the FSA chairman, asking him to investigate. “This man experienced first hand the appallingly bad job the FSA did of supervising the building societies,” Mr

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The Voice

Huhne on Green arrest: “monumental shambles” by senior civil servants

By The Voice | Thu 16th April 2009 - 2:28 pm

Tory MP Damien Green will not face criminal charges for his alleged role in leaking confidential home office documents, the Crown Prosecutions Service has announced. Menawhile the home affairs parliamentary select committee has found that civil servants exaggerated the seriousness of the leaks, claiming they had caused ‘considerable damage to national security’.

Lib Dem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne has not minced his words:

This is a monumental shambles. It is astonishing that ministers were not consulted, if the Home Affairs Select Committee is right, as they should have realised the political consequences of being seen to harass an

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: David Howarth – Who are the police protecting?

By The Voice | Thu 16th April 2009 - 11:11 am

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free, Lib Dem shadow justice secretary David Howarth asks if police interference in the right to protest is designed only to protect the political and economic status quo. Here’s an excerpt:

The arrest of more than one hundred climate protesters alleged to have been planning to disrupt the operation of the Ratcliffe coal-fired power station is, I am glad to see, raising questions about undue interference in the right to protest. Prior restraint of protest, especially in the form of preventive arrest, is difficult to justify. Adding restrictive conditions to the protesters’ bail makes the

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Jonathan Fryer – What Hope for the Middle East?

By The Voice | Wed 15th April 2009 - 6:30 pm

Over at Society Today, Lib Dem blogger and London candidate for the European Parliament Jonathan Fryer examines the prospects for peace in the troubled region. Here’s an excerpt:

… the prognosis for the future need not necessarily be as grim as the pessimists fear. First and foremost, the arrival of Barack Obama in the White House should provide a whole new dynamic to the Washington-Tel Aviv axis. In the past, US administrations – including that of George W Bush – have allowed Israel to get away with murder, literally and figuratively. That has included the ongoing expansion of Jewish settlements in

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Nick Clegg – A greater test is to come

By The Voice | Wed 15th April 2009 - 9:21 am

Over at The Guardian, Nick Clegg highlights that expense abuses are just one symptom of a bankrupt political culture, and argues that Britain deserves real change. Here’s an excerpt:

Britain’s MPs are facing a summer of reckoning. All 700,000 pages of their expense claims are going to be published in July. It’s an investigative journalist’s dream – reams of fodder to mock and hound the political establishment.

Many of the revelations will be relatively minor, but taken together they are significant. Last year I began publishing my expense claims voluntarily. People wrote to me asking questions about individual domestic items. Quite right

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
The Voice

Ros Scott’s party president report, March 2009

By The Voice | Tue 14th April 2009 - 5:55 pm

Those of you wishing to find out what Lib Dem party president Baroness Ros Scott has been up to in the past month (or so) can sate your curiosity over at her Because Baronesses are people too blog. Here’s an excerpt to entice you:

March was dominated by my first Federal Conference as President and, whilst I didn’t have a setpiece speech to give – that will have to wait until September – I was still pretty busy. Opening and closing Conference, giving the Federal Executive Report, chairing Kirsty Williams’ speech (and wasn’t that a barnstormer?) plus handing out the

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Posted in Party Presidency | Tagged | 2 Comments
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